Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday the residential college at Yale University attended by his biracial son, Dante, should “absolutely” be renamed because it honors a man who promoted racial segregation in the 1800s.
Asked about recent protests to rename Calhoun College — which was named after the nation’s seventh vice president, John C. Calhoun — Hizzoner said his teenage son had been involved in some of the demonstrations.
“He has certainly been involved in the discussions on campus and he’s active in the black student union and has been to some of the protests, I know that for sure,” the mayor said following a press conference in East Harlem on new mental health initiatives.
“He certainly notes the fact that the college he’s in, Calhoun College, is named for someone it shouldn’t be named for,” de Blasio added.
“It’s quite evident to him, and you can understand as a young man of African descent, it doesn’t feel particularly appropriate to live in a place named after the chief segregationist leader of the South in that particular time.”
Asked whether he himself thinks the school should be renamed, the mayor said, “Absolutely.”
Yale officials said the school’s governing board will be holding meetings where community members can weigh in on the name of Calhoun College and two new residential colleges set to open in 2017.