Yale To Rename Calhoun College For Grace Hopper

NEW HAVEN, CT — Yale University is renaming Calhoun College for Grace Murray Hopper, one of the university's most distinguished graduates, university president Peter Salovey announced in a letter to the Yale community Saturday. The renaming of the college puts to an end a tense racial issue that sparked protests from students demanding the university remove John C. Calhoun's name from the college.

"The decision to change a college’s name is not one we take lightly, but John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a “positive good” fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values," Salovey said in his letter.

Last April, Yale decided not to rename the college despite calls to the university to do so. Calhoun was an 1804 graduate of Yale. The Yale Daily News notes that the renaming of the college is the first time in the university's 316-year legacy that it will rename a building based on the namesake's legacy.

Students at Yale put extensive pressure on the university to rename the college by protesting. As recently as Friday, four people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after police say they refused to remove themselves from the street at the intersection at Elm & College while protesting the college's name.

Salovey defended his decision not to rename the college last April, saying he was committed to confronting and not erasing the university's history.

"I was concerned about inviting a series of name changes that would obscure Yale’s past," he wrote.

The university established principles on renaming and asked three advisors to apply those principles to the renaming of Calhoun College. All three advisors recommended unanimously that the name be changed.

Grace Mary Hopper, for whom the college will be renamed, was "a trailblazing computer scientist, brilliant mathematician and teacher, and dedicated public servant, Hopper received a master’s degree in mathematics (1930) and a Ph.D. in mathematics and mathematical physics (1934) from Yale. She taught mathematics at Vassar for nearly a decade before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, where she used her mathematical knowledge to fight fascism during World War II." (Read her full biography here.)

The fight to rename the college brought to the forefront racial issues present on the campuses of elite universities that grapple with complicated legacies. The issue is not isolated to Yale and prominent universities like Princeton and Georgetown have also dealt with raw racial tensions that manifest themselves over the names of buildings.

Read Salovey's full letter to the Yale community here.

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