Statues and murals removed, Columbus Day replaced with Indigenous People’s celebrations
Many universities have villainized Christopher Columbus over the years, removing statues, artwork, and days honoring the explorer as faculty and students label him a murderous colonizer.
The College Fix identified more than a dozen cases in recent years of cancellations and attempted cancellations of Columbus in higher education. The list can be found at the bottom of this article, but it is not exhaustive.
Many more higher education institutions have replaced Columbus Day – celebrated on the second Monday of October – with Indigenous People’s Day celebrations.
This year, some universities are only hosting activities for Indigenous People’s Day and not Columbus Day, The Fix found.
University of Colorado Boulder has planned an event called “Indigenous Peoples Day Reframed: Toward an Intersectional, Decolonial, and Transnational Vision for Indigenous Sovereignty.”
Another session, “Land Back, Language Back,” focuses on “Indigenous sovereignty, social and environmental justice, and civil rights,” with speakers from Native American tribes.
Montana State University also is hosting an Indigenous Peoples’ Day Dinner with various types of “pre-Columbian” foods.
The cancellation of Columbus is part of an ongoing trend.
Among the most notable, Columbus State Community College removed the statue of its namesake in 2020 in response to student protests.
Protesters accused the Italian explorer of contributing to the “rape and genocide of Native Americans,” WOSU News reported.
University President David Harrison stated at the time that the statue’s removal was “a symbolic gesture of our commitment to … continue and accelerate the fight against systemic racism.”
In 2017, Pepperdine University also removed its Christopher Columbus statue in response to similar demands. The statue later was moved to its Florence, Italy campus.
Protesters said the statue represented “a prioritization of nominally esteemed university donors above the cultural acceptance and personal experience of marginalized students,” The Fix reported at the time.
The University of Notre Dame also covered murals of Columbus in 2020 after students and staff said they depict stereotypes of Native Americans and celebrate slavery. The Catholic university began displaying Native American tapestries instead.
Notably, this fall, Notre Dame announced plans to temporarily uncover the 19th century murals for two weeks so that classes could view them for “instructional purposes.”
Columbus was imperfect like other great heroes: historian
Two historians expressed concerns about the erasure and villainization of Columbus in interviews this month with The College Fix.
Mary Grabar, historian and author of “Debunking Howard Zinn,” told The Fix in an email that the opposition to Columbus had little to do with the facts of America’s discovery or the man’s character.
Grabar said protesters’ complaints are based on an “anti-western agenda,” promoted by the late historian Howard Zinn.
“Zinn had to twist the facts about Columbus in order to hide his real qualities: courage, strong Christian faith, and a belief in the dignity of all people–including the indigenous people he encountered,” she said in the email.
Dominic Candeloro, a former history professor at Loyola University in Chicago, told The Fix that Columbus had an imperfect record as an administrator, businessman, and diplomat.
But his achievements brought two continents together, creating a new world, he said.
Candeloro, who has described himself as left of center, said Columbus was deeply religious and ahead of his time. He “embodied the spirit of enterprise and capitalism,” which prompted his aggressive explorations, the scholar told The Fix via email.
The explorer’s actions and persistence make him a “perfect representative of Western European culture,” he said.
Today, Candeloro said Catholic men used his image, which inspired the works of the fraternal organization Knights of Columbus.
However, some African Americans and Native Americans see Columbus as a symbol of the mistreatment of their groups by European Christian capitalist culture, he said.
Candeloro encouraged more open debate on the explorer, saying it “will sharpen our analytical skills and sensitize us in dealing with the problems of the future in our diverse society.”
“We can, we should, disagree about our interpretation of the past. There are no easy answers,” he said.
Columbus cancelled on campus
Past attempts to cancel the Italian explorer include:
1. Columbus State Community College decided to remove and store a statue of Christopher Columbus in 2020 after protests demanding its removal.
2. Tufts University faculty voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day in 2016.
3. The University of Notre Dame covered its Christopher Columbus murals with Native American tapestries in 2020.
4. Scholars criticized the College Board for snubbing Christopher Columbus in its 2017 revisions of the Advanced Placement European history course.
5. Pepperdine University removed its Columbus statue in 2017.
6. In 2017, University of Wisconsin Oskhosh began celebrating Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day.
7. Students at Arizona State University voted in 2012 to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day.
8. Yale University students demanded Columbus be “erased from history” in 2019 during an Indigenous People’s Day celebration.
9. At Marshall University in 2012, students called the explorer a mass murderer and demanded Columbus Day be abolished.
10. The student American Indian Association at University of Alabama at Birmingham petitioned the school in 2018 to remove its statue of Columbus from campus.
11. In 2020, Humboldt State University held a “Decolonizing Public History” event instead of celebrating Columbus Day. The event announcement included a photo of a statue of the explorer covered in what appeared to be blood and a sign that read, “Stop celebrating genocide.”
12. A City University of New York art professor gave protesters advice for toppling statues “faster” when some targeted a Christopher Columbus statue in 2020 at the Minnesota State Capitol, the New York Post reported.
Additionally, a Breitbart article identified at least 10 more colleges that stopped celebrating Columbus Day in 2019. They included Kansas State University, University of Southern California, Tufts University, Northwestern University, the University of Oregon, Santa Clara University, Oklahoma University, Washington State University, Idaho State University.
MORE: Lecture series aims to uncancel Christopher Columbus, ‘rectify’ his legacy
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