schmolik
CSNBB's Big 10 Cheerleader
Posts: 8,700
Joined: Sep 2019
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I Root For: UIUC, PSU, Nova
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
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RE: Rename Rutgers University?
(10-15-2020 03:22 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (10-15-2020 11:38 AM)schmolik Wrote: It was mentioned in a recent thread that they wanted to rename Rutgers to the University of New Jersey but there was backlash from alumni so they stopped. I don't remember hearing about this. I would have loved and think it would make way more sense to name the school after the state than after some dead guy no one remembers.
I also didn't hear recently there has been some talk in New Jersey about renaming Rutgers because Rutgers owned slaves. A Trentonian writer supported the move.
https://newjersey.news12.com/story/42312...lave-owner
https://www.trentonian.com/news/change-t...c3dbf.html
On the other hand, the poll taken by News 12 in New Jersey had 79.5% say the name shouldn't be changed out of 6,996 votes.
I don't really want to get into the whole "owned slaves" issue. I just think the name of the school should be something the university, the state of New Jersey, and the rest of the Big Ten should be proud of. If nobody knows who the heck Rutgers is, they're an embarrassment to our conference and the name should be changed. It's not even like Clemson or Auburn and it's the city the school is from.
Purdue was also named after "some dead guy no one remembers."
So were Baylor, Butler, Bradley, Babson, Bentley, Case Western, Creighton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Drexel, Duke, Harvard, Hofstra, Johns Hopkins, Pepperdine, Rensselaer Polytech, Rice, Tufts, Tulane, Vassar, Wheaton, Yale, and many others. Baylor, Hopkins, Duke, Rensselaer, and Rice owned slaves. Yale was a slave trader. Rice even served on the Slave Patrol for a time, returning runaway slaves to their owners.
Purdue is a land grant school, just like Rutgers.
Purdue is in the Big Ten, just like Rutgers.
No one is arguing that Purdue should change their name.
Most of the schools you mentioned are private schools. Rutgers is a public/state university (or they would want people to think that). Most other schools like Purdue, Clemson, and Auburn can't name themselves after their states because there already are state universities in their states (and Indiana State, South Carolina State, and Alabama State are all taken too). There is no other flagship university in Jersey. Plus at least Clemson and Auburn are named after the cities they are in. Sure, they're rinky dink cities no one other than people affiliated with the university lives in but they're just like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Houston in that aspect. Purdue at least sounds like the chicken company. Rutgers sounds like Buttgers.
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