HISTORIC

Yale to Rename Calhoun College

Amid protests over its namesake’s support for slavery.

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.