Outcome of Trinity College’s Berkeley library review will be watched across the world

Berkeley has a tradition of radical protests, from strikes against fascism in the 1940s to massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the 1960s to Black Lives Matter rallies in 2020.

It has already “denamed” several buildings that were called after past university presidents or benefactors who lived more than 100 years ago, but who would now be guilty of racism.

So why was a liberal university – set up as a secular public institution – named after an evangelising bishop who believed slaves “would only become better slaves by being Christian”?

The inspiration was, in large part, due to his writings on advancing the arts and learning in a pre-revolutionary America when he lived in Rhode Island.

The founders of the university may not have known he had slaves, but they were moved by a verse from one of his poems entitled On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America. The memorable line read: “Westward the course of empire takes its way.”

The latest report from Trinity’s Legacies Review Working Group says Berkeley University is addressing the 400-year-old history of slavery in North America as part of a reconciliation programme that does not specifically address George Berkeley.

It points out that in California, local residents have separately raised the possibility of renaming the city of Berkeley.

Elsewhere, American universities are also trying to come to terms with their past.

Harvard University last year created a $100m (€94m) endowment for slavery reparations.

Scholarships to Yale University had for years been funded by profits from Berkeley’s farm at Rhode Island.

A $20m endowment has now been promised by Yale to fund 10 social justice scholarships for incoming students dedicated to social justice work.

Changing a university’s name is a momentous decision, but it has happened as recently as last year in Canada where Ryerson University is now the Toronto Metropolitan University.

It was originally named after Egerton Ryerson, a prominent contributor to the Canadian public school system whose views influenced the development of the country’s controversial First Nations’ (Native Indian) residential school system.

Between 1881 and 1996, more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and taken to these schools.

Many were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide”.

The outcome of Trinity’s review will be awaited with interest across the world of academe. The chair of the group, Prof Eoin O’Sullivan, said that once the Berkeley question was dealt with, they would be inviting suggestions for other issues to examine.