Geraldo Rivera Blasts Yale for Removing Name Of Slaveholding Senator From Dorm

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By Daniel J. Solomon February 14, 2017

Geraldo Rivera ended his ties to Yale University in protest of its decision to rename a residential dorm named for ex-Vice President John C. Calhoun. The South Carolinian owned slaves and foreshadowed the Confederacy with his insistence on “states’ rights.”

Resigned yeterday as Associate Fellow of #CalhounCollege at #Yale. Been an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame.

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) February 12, 2017

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Yale’s choice to remove Calhoun’s name, the product of a years-long campus push, rankled among conservatives and those of various political stripes, who frame the move as erasing history. Advocates counter that the honor for Calhoun is inappropriate given his views that are now considered offensive.

Yale’s famed residential dorms, or colleges, commemorate famous Americans of great vintage, including founding father Ben Franklin and preacher Jonathan Edwards. Similar controversies are playing out on other elite campuses, as the racial legacy of university donors and prominent Americans come into ever-sharper focus.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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