Bryn Mawr College Takes On Founder's Racist, Anti-Semitic Views

BRYN MAWR, PA – Bryn Mawr College is addressing the troubling views of one of its founders, with President Kim Cassidy saying in a letter that the founder's name will not be used when referring to two buildings named after her.

Thomas Great Hall and Thomas Library are named after college founder M. Carey Thomas, who Cassidy said "openly and vigorously advanced racism and anti-Semitism as part of her vision of the College."

"To address this, I have decided that the College will place a moratorium on the use of the names of 'Thomas' Great Hall and 'Thomas' Library for the 2017-18 academic year while the issue is taken up by theworking group," Cassidy said in her letter. "In the interim we will refer to these spaces as Great Hall (or GH) in reference to the building’s large gathering space and College Hall to refer to the building itself."

The move comes after the troubling and tragic events in in Charlottesville, Virginia that led to one person being killed and many others injured at a "Unite the Right" rally that was opposed to the removal of Confederate statues.

"No solution is ideal," Cassidy said, "but my hope is that by fully acknowledging Thomas’ legacy of racism and anti-Semitism through this action, we will grant the community time for discernment: serious and thoughtful study, exchange of views, reflection, and action planning about our legacies of exclusion and resistance."

Cassidy said while the events in Charlottesville affected the decision to place a moratorium on using "Thomas," the conversation regarding Thomas' views began last semester.

"As you may remember, Dean Walters announced in the spring that she would form a working group of faculty, students, staff, trustees, and alumnae/i to educate us and to lead reflection on our institutional histories of exclusion, as well as resistance, and to organize our thinking and actions as a community," she wrote. "Bryn Mawr’s model of shared governance requires that we engage in shared decision-making on important issues such as these."

Image via Mark Goebel, Flickr Commons