"Brown University is taking the 'Columbus Day' out of Columbus Day weekend," the Associated Press reports:
The Ivy League school's faculty voted Tuesday to establish a new academic holiday in October called "Fall Weekend." The long weekend coincides with Columbus Day.
Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence school to stop observing Columbus Day, citing the explorer's violent treatment of Native Americans. Reiko Koyama, a sophomore, says celebrating Columbus Day seemed inconsistent with Brown's values.
Some people are unhappy about this; blogger Roger Kimball, for example, calls it "a tale from the annals of academic fatuousness, division of moronic anti-Americanism."
Our take is a bit different. Brown is still observing Columbus Day; it has merely decided to call it something else. Reiko Koyama and her comrades may say they loathe the man who discovered America, but apparently they don't feel strongly enough about it even to get off their duffs and go to class.
1 comment:
1) The student leaders of the movement wanted to have class that day but the student body, generally, and the faculty, specifically, determined that it would be unfair to support personnel who would then have to find childcare for their children who have the day off from public elementary/secondary schools.
2) Anyone who says Brown students are lazy ought to come to the library at 4 AM and talk to the kids that have been there since 8 AM the proceeding morning. When Brown students have work to do, they do it well. They take their work home with them at the end of the day. Finally, in addition to their classwork, many volunteer in the community tutoring high school students and teaching English to recent immigrants (this is volunteer work).
3) Brown has a keen appreciation of American history, and simply felt that it was inappropriate to honor a man who enslaved others.
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