The Price of Slavery, Harvard Law School Committee Recommends Seal Change

by Benson Agoha | Education

 

More than 200 years after the abolition of the slave trade, the term refuses to go away. A caricature photo shared on Facebook recently wondered why the `black man is so angry'.

​A Harvard committee tasked with re-considering Harvard Law School’s seal in light of its ties to slavery recommended Friday that the Harvard Corporation revoke the emblem’s status as the school’s official symbol

The committee of Harvard Law School faculty, students, alumni, and staff established in November by Dean Martha Minow has recommended to the Harvard Corporation that the HLS shield — which is modeled on the family crest of an 18th century slaveholder — no longer be the official symbol of Harvard Law School.

In transmitting the report to the Corporation, Dean Minow endorsed its recommendation saying “There are complex issues involved in preserving the histories of places and institutions with ties to past injustices, but several elements make retiring the shield less controverted than some other issues about names, symbols, and the past."

He added "First, the shield is a symbol whose primary purpose is to identify and express who we mean to be. Second, it is not an anchoring part of our history.”

“We believe that if the Law School is to have an official symbol, it must more closely represent the values of the Law School, which the current shield does not,” the Corporation, the committee report stated.

 

* Source : Harvard Law Today and The Harvard Crimson.