The University of Illinois - Chicago announced yesterday that it is dropping the "John Marshall" part of its UIC-John Marshall Law School name. (UIC's law school is unrelated to Atlanta's John Marshall Law School.) A task force had been reviewing the issue of whether, given Marshall's involvement with slavery, his name should remain on the law school. UIC's presser stated:
The task force report noted, “that despite Chief Justice Marshall’s legacy as one of the nation’s most significant U.S. Supreme Court justices, the newly discovered research regarding his role as a slave trader, slave owner of hundreds of slaves, pro-slavery jurisprudence, and racist views render him a highly inappropriate namesake for the Law School.”
UIC merged with the private John Marshall Law School in 2019. The school will now simply be known as the University of Illinois - Chicago School of Law.
More importantly, Marshall set constitutional jurisprudence on a ruinous path well nigh from the country's outset with the obviously disingenuous and erroneous decisions of Marbury v Madison and McCulloch v Maryland, cases which scream to be overturned unto this day.
Posted by: A non | May 23, 2021 at 03:12 AM
This is yet another case of political correctness run amuck.
Posted by: James Smith | May 23, 2021 at 11:54 PM
Ever since they merged with UIC, this has been on the way, and there's a similar dynamic happening at UNH. The alumni/donors don't want to change the name, but changing the name will allow them to attract a broader swath of students. Situating it as a "we have to change the name because racist" is being used mostly as an excuse to reframe the debate to get the change done over alumni objections.
Posted by: Non Commenter | May 24, 2021 at 09:58 AM