RENAMING PRINCIPLES | Harvard's Questions

Old Harvard Law School arms,
with Royall badges,
wheat sheaves or garbs.

 July 26, 2021—The "Rhodes Must Fall" initiative has provoked discussion at Oxford. A parallel debate is taking place in other universities.

The Harvard Law School, for example, before 2016 had wheat sheaves or "garbs" in its coat of arms (Azure three garbs or a chief of Gules three open books argent garnished or the word VE-RI-TAS sable) because of its association with Isaac Royall, Jr., who endowed the first Harvard Law School professorship. 

The Royall wealth was based in part on the family's engagement in the slave trade. Worse, Royall's father "treated his slaves with extreme cruelty, including burning 77 people to death," according to a Law School statement. Martha Minow, dean of the Law School, formed a special committee to study the use of the arms to represent the school and make recommendations.

An early history of the issue is on a heraldry blog [http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2015/12/heraldic-controversy-in-cambridge.html] a that references Steve Annear, Boston Globe, December 7, 2015. [http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/12/01/harvard-law-school-forms-committee-examine-use-crest-tied-slave-ownership/1JR7OwiLIsPc3BxRUiH6yH/story.html].

The student initiative at the Harvard Law School, called Royall Must Fall, urged the Law School to change the seal. It arose from decisions in some southern states to remove the Confederate battle flag from certain public venues because of its use by those opposed to equal rights for Blacks in  since the 1960s.

The three wheat sheaves ("garbs") are the arms of Isaac Royall, Jr. as found on a baptismal basin donated by him to St. Michael’s Church in Bristol, Rhode Island; on his bookplate; on a two-handled cup in the possession of the First [Congregational] Church of Medford, Massachusett; and on the tomb of Isaac Royall and his father, William Royall, in Dorchester, Massachusetts (Bolton’s American Armory, Charles Knowles Bolton, The F.W. Faxon Company, Boston, 1927, pp. 142-143). [Bolton’s work, which heraldic scholars have noted has many errors in it, is the only work in which Annear found these arms.] The Royall family owned slaves on a plantation in Antigua and Barbuda as well as their house in Medford. 

After a months-long deliberative process, a Law School committee recommended in March 2016 that Harvard change the seal. Later that month, the Corporation—the University’s highest governing body— accepted the proposal to remove the Royall badges [incorrectly called "crests," which are the adornments above the helmet in a full achievement of a coat of arms] from the Law School’s official seal. At the time, Law School spokesperson Robb London told The Crimson the school would select a new seal by 2017, in time for the school’s bicentennial celebration.

Two years later, a Crimson article by Aidan F. Ryan (aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com. Twitter @AidanRyanNH) reported on the status of the removal. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/4/24/hls-continues-no-seal/ 

At the end of that celebration, but the school remained seal-less. In an interview in 2018, Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 said administrators have focused on the school’s capital campaign and the bicentennial and will adopt a new seal later. “It’s been a very busy year,” Manning said. “We want to think about what is a fair and effective process for identifying a new seal.”

Tthe Law School worked quickly to remove the Royall badges from campus and from Law School websites. The endeavor was mostly successful, but the seal was still visible at some locations on the Law School campus in 2017. The three wheatsheaves of the Royall coat of arms remained in at least one location on campus—the door of a Harvard-owned property at 10 Mt. Auburn St.

“As soon as the Corporation accepted the recommendation to retire the shield, the School undertook an effort to remove all known instances of it from campus locations, print materials, licensed products and web content," said Matthew Gruber, Dean of Administration. 

Amanda M. Lee, former president of the Law School student government, wrote in an email that the absence of an official seal has not generated much concern among the student body, but some students “had concerns that the diploma might have a blank seal.” Manning confirmed diplomas will bear the University’s “Veritas” seal.

The university in 2021 has meanwhile created an alumni focus group to assist The University's Committee to Articulate Principles Involved in Renaming, chaired by Drew Faust. Here are the Committee's questions in July 2021:

- How do buildings, landmarks, and other named entities factor into your personal experience and sense of belonging at Harvard? Please offer examples.

- What factors and University values are most important to consider when deciding whether to rename an entity on campus? How should we take account of and balance both a namesake’s positive contributions and their failures and flaws? How do we understand these in light of the era in which the namesake lived? In light of the era in which a name was bestowed?

- How should we ensure that renaming does not result in erasing past history? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of removing a name versus contextualizing the history of the namesake? What factors would you consider in determining whether to do one or the other?

ORIEL COLLEGE | Rhodes Statue to Stay

Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel
College, Oxford.

May 20, 2021—Oriel College will be celebrating its seven-hundredth anniversary in 2026. That may have given the College's administration a Long View of current issues, notably its decision announced today about the "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign.

The current Provost of Oriel College, since 2018, is Baron Neil Mendoza, an entrepreneur and publisher. Last year he created an independent commission to study the Rhodes Must Fall issues, for example the actions of Rhodes during his lifetime and his posthumous legacy. Its report supports a recommendation to remove the Rhodes statue—most of its members favored relocatitue—but notes that the final decision is up to the Oriel fellows, who constitute the governing board of the college.

This morning, Oriel's governing board announced Rhodes won’t fall, but that the other recommendations by the independent commission will be adopted. The board notes that most of its submissions supported keeping the statue in place.

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign has been active for at least five years (see Oxford College Arms, 4th ed., p. 63).  It reached a climax in June 2020, when the Black Lives Matter campaigns added fuel to the anti-Rhodes protests. Cecil Rhodes was an alumnus of Oriel College and in 1902 left a substantial sum to endow the college. During his life he created the "Cape to Cairo" component of the British empire from the southern Cape of Good hope through Rhodesia and East Africa to Egypt. His methods ranged from brilliant enterprise to brutal force. (As Shashi Tharoor quoted an "Indian nationalist" as saying, in An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, “The sun never set on the British empire, because even God couldn’t trust the Englishman in the dark.”)

The previous Provost of Oriel College was Moira Wallace, OBE, former British civil servant and first Permanent Secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. She was the first female Provost of Oriel. When the Rhodes Must Fall campaign hit Oriel in 2016, she favored open discussion of relocating the statue. The Oxbridge Pursuivant reported on this at the time: https://theoxbridgepursuivant.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-statue-of-cecil-rhodes-in-capetown.html.

The governing body of Oriel at the time expressed its wish to remove the statue from the college. One suggestion was to move it to a museum where it might comply with historic preservation laws and at the same time satisfy those who consider Rhodes an evil thug by adding an exhibit showing where Rhodes deserves praise and where not. 

A group of alumni donors reacted to the news of the governing body's views by writing that they would end regular giving or pledges to Oriel College if it removed the statue. The total impact on the college was estimated at approximately £100 million. Other alumni said they would make up the loss if the statue went, but so far no escrow account appears to have been created for this purpose.

Oriel reports that it is not beginning the legal process for relocating the statue because of the high cost of doing so in light of historic preservation laws (at a difficult time for  most of the colleges because of Brexit and Covid-19). However, many of the commission's recommendations will be followed. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9599125/Inquiry-set-wake-BLM-protests-says-statue-Cecil-Rhodes-Oxford-removed.html.

VIEWS | 270K—Ten Most-Read in June

Page views for this Oxbridge Pursuivant blog just passed 270,000. 

Thank you for reading. 

Here are the top ten most-viewed posts during the past month (i.e., June 2020). #1 was a post on Oxford during World War II. #2 was on one of the two Oxonians in the race for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States—Mayor Peter Buttigieg (see 2nd item below). The other was Senator Cory Booker, about whom I will write.

Entry

HITLER: Why Didn't He Bomb Oxford? (26K Views, Aug... Jun 8, 2013, 3 comments

OXONIAN | Mayor Pete Buttigieg May 11, 2019

OXFORD UNION | Tony Schwartz, November 4, 2016, "T... Jan 28, 2019

RHODES MUST FALL | Oriel College, Oxford to Remove... Jun 21, 2020

HERALDRY: Superlink Nov 22, 2015

R.I.P. | Robert L. Schuettinger (Exeter and Christ... Sep 14, 2018, 1 comment

BOAT RACE: Dinners 2015 Mar 1, 2015

OXFORD COLLEGE ARMS | Index to 4th ed. May 10, 2020

HERALDRY: Oxford Stars (Updated May 26, 2019) Nov 21, 2014, 2 comments

OXBURGH HALL | Visit to the Bedingfeld Home Sep 21, 2018

RHODES MUST FALL | Oriel College, Oxford to Remove Rhodes Statue

A statue of Cecil Rhodes in Capetown being
removed to an undisclosed location. 

June 21, 2020—The shocking killing of George Floyd has had global implications. The long-time "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign for the removal of statues to Cecil Rhodes has been reenergized.

Here's the best discussion I have seen on how to evaluate monuments to past heroes. Were they working, within the constraints of their time, for a better world?

Rhodes had a dream of a "Capetown to Cairo" British Empire in Africa. He helped realize that dream and had two countries named after him for many decades—Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, and Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. He created the famed Rhodes Scholarships to Oxford, won by such American political successes as the late Senators Richard Lugar (Univ College, Oxford) and William Fulbright (Pembroke College, Oxford), and President Bill Clinton (Univ College, Oxford).

The Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign looks at his achievements through the lens of his attitude and behavior toward black Africans. The RMF campaign was successful in Capetown, South Africa, where the statue of Rhodes was lifted from its pedestal. However, the campaign to remove a statue of Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford came to a screeching halt in 2015 when several alumni threatened to end their giving to Oriel if it acceded to the demands of the campaigners. (Shameless self-promotion: This is covered on page 63 of the 4th edition of Oxford College Arms.)

At the time, the RMF banner was not one that the Oriel Provost wanted, in the end, to fight for. The resolution at the time appeared reasonable, balancing the importance of keeping historical valuable monuments while facing up to the moral or other shortcomings of people who were once lionized.

What a difference the video of Floyd's killing has made! On June 9, a thousand RMF protesters descended on Oriel College. On June 17, the governing body of Oriel College voted to remove the statue to its alumnus, Cecil Rhodes. The next day (the 78th birthday of Sir Paul McCartney), Husayn Kassai, founder of the verification company Onfido, revealed that he promised to replace any funding commitments withdrawn by "racist" alumni donors who object to the removal of the memorial to Rhodes.

Back in the United States, even the statue of Oxford alumnus Robert Moses is being threatened. That would have been unthinkable by most people before his principal biographer, Robert Caro, famously (in The Power Broker) documented the man's aggregation of power and his use of it to preserve public spaces for relatively well off people. Moses was a New York City Parks Commissioner for 26 years. He built parks and parkways all over New York City and Long Island. He used his power to promote the automobile and higher-income residents. For example, he built bridges on his parkway with low clearance, to prevent busloads of poor people coming to use his park.

There is a Rhodes connection to Moses. After Yale, Moses went to Oxford (Wadham College), graduating with a degree in jurisprudence in 1911. He was not, of course,  himself a Rhodes Scholar, but he had strong opinions about Rhodes Scholars. The new campaign to remove his statue in Babylon gives new meaning to Paul Robeson's rendition of Go Down Moses.

Removing a desanctified statue poses new problems. If it goes to a museum, and other monuments follow, the museum could become a shrine for fans, or another flashpoint, or both. A statue of (Roman Catholic) James II that was dumped in a nearby river was rescued; the metal was cleverly "repurposed" to make bells for the Anglican church.

Meanwhile, Oriel has formed a Commission to make a recommendation by the end of 2020. Permission or signoff will be needed from English Heritage, as the Rhodes Building at Oriel is listed Grade II. (Meanwhile, what about Rhodes House? It's hard to disentangle the Rhodes Scholarships from the man who created them.)