Harvard Coop to sell off remaining merchandise with law school shield

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/18/harvard-coop-sell-off-remaining-merchandise-with-law-school-shield/AM1rR3Cz3owA3hyH8fYGgI/story.html



Harvard Coop to sell off remaining merchandise with law school shield
By Steve Annear Globe Staff March 18, 2016

It’s been stripped from Harvard Law School’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, and it is being wiped clean from the university’s website.

Now, the controversial shield with ties to a slave-holding family that has represented the law school for nearly 80 years will slowly disappear from the shelves and online store of The Harvard Coop.

The Coop, located in Harvard Square, is the main retailer of Harvard textbooks and swag, including sweatshirts, mugs, hats, T-shirts, decals, and umbrellas.

Jerry Murphy, president of the Coop, which has served the Harvard community since 1882, said the store will sell off its remaining law school inventory that bears the symbol following the university’s decision this week to let the school abandon the use of the shield.

[EdwardBernays]

1. Wow!

That's mad... I didn't know it was being phased out.

[Mister Ed]

2. The article didn't make it entirely clear to me why the shield's being discontinued.

Is it because the sheafs of gathered grain are thought to represent the labor of enslaved people? I think that's what the article was hinting at, but I'm not sure.

[unhappycamper]

3. Here's the reason why Harvard's dropping that shield:

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/harvard_university_agrees_to_r.html#incart_river_home



Harvard University agrees to retire law school shield tied to slavery
By The Associated Press
on March 14, 2016 at 9:15 PM, updated March 14, 2016 at 9:16 PM

CAMBRIDGE — Harvard University is retiring the official shield of its law school following complaints over its ties to an 18th-century slaveholder.

The university's governing body announced the decision Monday, supporting a campus committee's previous recommendation to remove the shield.

The shield was approved in 1937 and depicts three bundles of wheat. It's modeled after the family crest of slaveholder Isaac Royall Jr., who donated his estate to create the first law professorship at Harvard. Royall inherited his estate and many slaves from his father, a slaveholder who was known for his cruelty.

Students formed a group last fall calling for removal of the shield.

[Mister Ed]

4. Thanks. That explains it.

If this was originally the family crest of the Royalls, then the sheafs of gathered wheat almost certainly represent slave labor.

Without the knowledge that it was an adaptation of the Royall family crest, I would have guessed that the sheafs probably represented The Gathering of Knowledge, and the Bounty That Results From That Noble Harvest or some such folderol.