Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Yale University president Peter Salovey announced on Saturday that one of the university’s residential colleges, Calhoun College, will be renamed to honor Grace Murray Hopper, a Navy rear admiral who died in 1992. The college was initially named after John C. Calhoun, a Yale alumnus, but in recent years students and activists have protested the name due to Calhoun’s support for slavery. “The decision to change a college’s name is not one we take lightly,” Salovey said. “But John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately supported slavery as a ‘positive good’ fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values.” Hopper, a two-time yale graduate, was a pioneer in the field of computer science. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year.