Rehabbed Harvard residence will no longer showcase portrait of racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic namesake

...don't get to have their portraits up either, on account of being on record defending their Asian quotas in court not but last year?

Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who banned black students from Harvard Yard residences, instituted a quota for Jews and led a purge of gay students.

It amazes me how a country where Orwell's 1984 is standard reading during high school or college, where Martin Luther King's speeches are quoted at every opportunity, and where the saying "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" is ingrained in the culture as a cliche...can still have people in prominent positions proceed to publicly and prolifically...throw stones in their glass houses.

Harvard was the first institution of higher learning in America, founded in 1636. Slavery and the slave economy thread through the first 150 years of its history. Slaves made beds and meals for Harvard presidents. The sons of wealthy Southern plantation owners became prominent men on campus. And many of the school's major donors in its first centuries made their fortunes in industries either based on, or connected to, slavery.

Under today's standards, the name Harvard should be removed from the college immediately. Although Harvard still attempts to keep most of its despicable, slave-related history under wraps, those who have researched it find it chilling. It's long past time for the Harvard name to go.

Of course, that's a bridge too far as it might endanger the economic prospects of the Harvard community who have profited on the name and on the backs of slaves for 382 years. Let's limit the feel-good name changing to an obscure lunch room and not anything that might hurt the organization. Really shameless.

...of A.L. Lowell’s gay purge was that his sister, the poet Amy Lowell lived with another woman, who inspired her love poems, smoked cigars and otherwise didn’t give a fig for established gender roles.

I think it is also worthwhile to note that Lowell’s Jewish quota and residential policy for blacks were only proposals and eventually rejected by the Board of Overseers. However, Lowell found a work-around which, in effect, enabled the quota to be implemented, more than halving the percentage of Jews in the entering class from a high of 28% to 10% by the time he stepped down as president.

I would suggest as well, that anyone interested do a little googling. You’ll discover that in other aspects he was remarkably progressive. However, like his fellow college president, Woodrow Wilson, he was not immune to the prejudices of his time or class.

What the Museum of Natural History in NYC did with a hackneyed diorama is an excellent example of how keeping the old stuff while describing its problematic history can go a great deal further than just removing problematic history from the landscape: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/arts/design/nat...

Due to a number of reasons including hubris, self-loathing, and fertility, the era of white-dominant institutions is coming to an end. Which demographic will fill the vacuum? The East Asians have long been poised to make a run at political power but have yet to show up.

Will we have a bunch of competing tribes, a new dominant tribe, or will the whites develop some sort of system to align interests and consolidate power?

Yes, A. Lawrence Lowell did all of the bad things mentioned in this post. However, he also started the Harvard Extension School, which has subsequently benefited many Jews (including me), African-Americans, and other people whom Lowell tried to keep out of the College.

rename the Lowell House already!