On "Denaming" Berkeley's Bancroft Library...

& how do we think of this in the context of "westward the course of empire takes its way..."?

& how do we think of this in the context of "westward the course of empire takes its way..."?

On the one hand, I find myself strongly in favor of renaming—the Bancroft name has had a long run, by now I can think of many more people who have done more in various ways to contribute to fiat lux than he did, and he was a pretty obnoxious guy who we cannot be very proud of. On the other hand, that a guy we find so obnoxious was more on the side of the angels than not for his day is an important fact that we should not erase from our memory, and part of keeping that memory is to keep note of the fact that Bancroft was thought worth honoring, back in the day…

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Bishop George Berkeley:

THE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime,
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame:

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin[ed.] earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true:

In happy climes the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heav'nly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

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With that as prologue, where I am on the “Bancroft Library Reckoning” question?

I am here. Although I could be argued into a different position, and my sense is that I could be so argued relatively easily...

1. I find myself strongly in favor of renaming—the Bancroft name has had a long run, and by now I can think of many more people who have done more in various ways to contribute to fiat lux than he did...

2. I find myself weakly opposed to denaming--in context, it sends a signal that the University of California does not have people in the past associated with it that we want to honor, and I think that that is wrong: We do...

3. I find myself more distressed than I thought I would be by the fact that the reports on the ‘reckoning’ do not convey the fact that Bancroft was, when all is said and done, an ally—an incredibly imperfect and truly deplorable ally, but an ally nevertheless—of the Chinese-Americans of California at a time when they had very few allies.

4. How you should think about past deplorable and imperfect allies who were, nevertheless, trying to push society in the right direction—with respect to Bancroft, recognizing the natural rights of Chinese-Americans to come to, live, and work in California in the face of strong and angry very large voter majorities who wanted to deny them all of those rights and throw them out of California—is not an issue that I think I have a correct understanding of.

5. But whatever the answer is, it does not lie in overlooking that fact: that they were all-in-all more allies than not when the chips were really down...

<https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/bancroft-library-reckoning-committee>

<https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/bancroft_reckoning_readings>

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