Around New England

Harvard Law School Replaces Slave-Owning Family Crest With … Nothing

April 24, 2018

Two years after Harvard Law School dumped the crest of a prominent New England family from its seal because the family owned slaves, the school has yet to replace the crest with anything.

The school removed the crest in the spring of 2016 after activists demanded it. At the the time a spokesman said the school would have a new crest in place in time for the 200th anniversary of the school in 2017, according to The Harvard Crimson.

But the dean of the law school recently told The Harvard Crimson that school officials have been “very busy” raising money and celebrating the bicentennial of the school.

The Royall family, of Medford, donated money that helped establish the first professorship of law at Harvard. So Harvard put the crest of the family, which includes three sheaves of wheat, in the seal of the law school. It appeared on the diplomas of graduates before it was disestablished.

But the family owned slaves. That led some students to start a “Royall Must Fall” movement to get rid of the crest from the school’s seal.

Since then, school officials have been removing the Royall family crest from the campus, clothing, web sites, and anywhere else they see it, a law school official told The Harvard Crimson.