Yale urges discussion on college honoring slavery supporter John C Calhoun

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Calhoun College named for South Carolina senator who died in 1850
Vice president under John Quincy Adams said slavery was 'positive good'
Students urged to have discussion about changing the name of college
Founder Elihu Yale also profited from slave trade but Dean Jonathan Holloway said that changing the name of university was 'off the table'

By Associated Press and Dailymail.com Reporter

Published: 17:46 EST, 29 August 2015 | Updated: 00:33 EST, 30 August 2015

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A residential college at Yale University is named after John C Calhoun, a former US senator and vice president under John Quincy Adams

Yale University's leaders have urged conversation about whether to change the name of a residential college named for John C Calhoun, a US vice president who was an ardent supporter of slavery.

Debate over the name began this summer with a petition circulated after nine black worshippers were slain in a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

The petition said the Calhoun name, in place since the 1930s, represents 'an indifference to centuries of pain and suffering among the black population.'

'Calhoun College will always preclude minority students from feeling truly at home at Yale,' it said.

Its namesake graduated from Yale in 1804 and was a senator from South Carolina who routinely defended slavery as 'a positive good' before he died in 1850.

President Peter Salovey and Dean Jonathan Holloway said in a letter to alumni that weren't taking a position on the question but urging a discussion in welcoming speeches to first-year students, and 'we encourage you to take part as well.'

'Any response should engage the entire community in a thoughtful, campus-wide conversation about the university's history, the reasons why we remember or honor individuals, and whether historical narratives should be altered when they are disturbing,' the letter said.

Salovey and Holloway posted their remarks to the students on the university's website, along with suggested scholarly readings and an internal comment site.

Yale President Peter Salovey (left) and Dean Jonathan Holloway (right) said in a letter to alumni that weren't taking a position on the question of whether to change the residential college's name

Previous efforts to rename Calhoun College have suggested hyphenating it and including an honor for one of the first black students to graduate Yale. Above, Calhoun College

The president told the students Yale needs to confront its complex, 300-year history in a thoughtful way, and 'everyone connected to Yale will have something to contribute to the discussion.'

Holloway, a scholar of African-American history, said the university's benefactor, 18th century British shipping magnate and philanthropist Elihu Yale, probably didn't own slaves, but undoubtedly profited from the international slave trade.

He told the freshman that eight years ago a painting of Yale with a collared slave was removed and replaced with one of the founder alone, according to the Yale Daily News.

Yale has recently admitted a more diverse student body, though in 2011 it was the only Ivy League school to have more than half its undergrads be white. Above, Yale's campus in New Haven, Connecticut

Yale founder Elihu Yale also profited from the slave trade. Above, a painting of the 17th century merchant and a slave

While he said that students should also look at honors for 'individuals who also owned slaves, were deeply racist', he also asserted that changing the name of the university was 'off the table'.

The dean told the students the questions of the university's identity, national assumptions about race, and their own identities are big questions that 'form part of the education that awaits you.'

A page for Calhoun college says that attempts to change the name have suggested hyphenating it to Calhoun-Bouchet College, in honor of the man once thought to be the first black student to graduate from Yale.

Edward Bouchet graduated in 1874 and letters later revealed that Richard Henry Green earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1857, according to the New York Times.

A Yale release about this year's freshman class touted that 'the number of freshmen who identify as Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic/Latino, or Native American has increased 17% in the past five years.'

As of 2011 Yale was the only Ivy League school where more than half of the undergraduate population was white, according to the National Journal.