[music playing]
KATIE COURIC: If the battle over monuments
has been raging in towns across the country,
the early skirmishes started at Ivy League universities
like Yale.
CROWD: Hey hey!
Ho ho!
Calhoun's College has to go.
Hey hey!
Ho ho!
Calhoun's College has to go.
KATIE COURIC: Calhoun College was named in 1933 after Yale
alumnus John C. Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina who
later served as vice president to John Quincy
Adams and Andrew Jackson.
But that's not all.
In the first half of the 19th century,
he was the most strident articulator, to use his words,
of slavery as a positive good.
And he rooted that view that slavery
was a positive both for slave holders and slaves,
an idea that--
that-- that I think is deeply disturbing to us today.
He rooted that belief in core beliefs about white supremacy.
KATIE COURIC: Senior Dasia Moore said Calhoun's name
and the images from his time made her uncomfortable,
especially in the dining hall.
Right across from me, I can see
this stained glass window that depicts
two slaves picking something.
It's a symbol that declares, you do not belong here,
or you are imagined in this space
to fulfill a certain really limited role.
KATIE COURIC: The already simmering debate
became more heated after Yale dining
hall worker Corey Menafee smashed one of the windows.
REPORTER: Although a university worker for eight years,
Menafee says he had been working in the dining hall
at Calhoun College for just six months.
While mopping the floors, the 38-year-old took a mop handle
to the subject of his disgust.
KATIE COURIC: What was going through your head, Corey?
I was--
I was just sick of looking at that window.
Here we are in the 21st century, and I don't think
those type of images should be blatantly displayed
in places like dining halls.
It's culturally insensitive.
It's no secret that the majority of the employees
who work in the dining hall are of African-American descent.
KATIE COURIC: It was a literal and figurative breaking point.
WOMAN (ON BULLHORN): Take down these racist window panes.
CROWD: Change the name.
KATIE COURIC: Yale President Peter Salovey was initially
opposed to changing the name.
Our campus, both in the classroom
but also outside of the classroom,
it is a living history lesson.
And I wanted to make sure that that conversation about Calhoun
was one that we could always have.
MAN (ON BULLHORN): Calhoun does not deserve [inaudible]..
CROWD: Change the name.
KATIE COURIC: Salovey was caught between students who thought
his decision was wrong-headed, and older
alumni who felt he should stand on the side of tradition.
So Salovey appointed a committee to come up with a blueprint
for who stays and who goes.
After all, nine other buildings on campus
are named for men associated with slavery,
including Elihu Yale himself.
John Witt was head of the committee.
Renaming ought to be a rare thing on a research university
campus like ours, but sometimes renaming might be appropriate.
We're supposed to think abstractly about principle
legacies, thinking about whether the idea is
contested at the time of the namesake,
thinking about what the motive of the university
was in putting the name on the building.
And then last, how does the building work
in helping to build community.
KATIE COURIC: The committee came up with four principles
and discovered Calhoun's name was controversial even
back in 1933.
There were statements written at the time saying, really?
John C. Calhoun?
KATIE COURIC: So at a ceremony this fall,
Calhoun College was officially renamed
after the late Navy Admiral, computer pioneer,
and Yale alumna, Grace Hopper.
Bless those that belong to this college now.
Grace Marie Hopper is your home.
Was it emotional for you, Dasia, in there?
It was.
I mean, I--
I got hit with the emotion right before I walked in,
and it was just pure joy.
Well, I was really excited about it, because I've always
looked up to Grace Hopper ever since I learned
about her in high school.
So now when people ask you what college you're in--
I'm really excited to tell them I'm in Hopper.
I'm really proud to be here as a sophomore.
Changing the people that we honor,
um, helps a wider range of students
be able to envision themselves as someone
who can make a difference, who will be remembered.
KATIE COURIC: As part of a conscious effort
to not sanitize or erase the past,
Calhoun's name and image will remain on the edifice.
It's no longer the name by which this college is known,
but the history and what we need to learn from and about John
C. Calhoun is not wiped away.
We can't forget that Yale was a university that once did have
a college, a very important part of the campus,
dedicated to John C. Calhoun.