The Patriot Post® · Now Calhoun's Replacement at Yale Under Fire

Calhoun College — which for decades and without incident paid homage to John C. Calhoun — was recently ordered by Yale University to revise its name to placate the demands of campus moral do-gooders. But the purging isn’t quite the victory some envisioned. As it turns out, Grace Hopper, the woman selected as Calhoun’s replacement, has yet another grievance group crying foul. The consternation this time is even more peculiar — Hopper, a female who rose to the impressive rank of Naval Admiral and greatly expanded the field of computer science, is considered a feminist paragon. But for the ever-evolving snowflakes of today, the color of her skin, ironically enough, creates a big problem.

In a Facebook response, The Yale Women’s Center began by voicing support. “However,” the dissenters continue, “we had hoped for a name change that acknowledged the years of activism by students of color and New Haven activists. We feel the decision to change the name from a white supremacist to a white woman, as amazing as she may be, is an act of whitewashing.” The group also complains “the decision to rename the college after another white person seems like an attempt to end this discussion on the history of white supremacy and its active and continued role in this institution and on our campus.”

HeatStreet reports on additional objections: “A PR person for the women’s center, Vicki Beizer, told the student newspaper that the administration let them down by ignoring names that would have ‘carried the dialogue further,’ and that ‘renaming the college after a white woman doesn’t put the cork in the bottle.’ Members of the organization also published an op-ed for the Daily to argue that ‘white femininity has often been used as a tool to enforce racist and colonialist structures,’ and that naming the college after Hopper was a ‘continuous perpetuation of white supremacy.’”

This is the problem with revisionist history and inculcating those who seek to erase or modify America’s heritage, and also with moral relativism, for that matter: Once you go down that path, there’s no knowing when to stop. There’s no question the U.S. had (and has) its problems, and slavery undoubtedly tops the list. But if the purveyors of political correctness are looking for icons who are pure and blameless, well, good luck with that. It’s a futile effort. Then again, their very definition of pure and blameless is grossly distorted. They think the only righteous path is to idolize someone who’s not white.