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Political pressure has forced authorities at Yale to remove a doorway carving because it depicts a Puritan with a gun.
Temporary stonework will cover a carving of a Puritan colonist pointing a musket at a Native American, the Associated Press reported. The carving itself will eventually be removed because it was labeled “problematic.”
It will be put in an historical display on campus – something Yale’s president emphasized.
“We cannot make alterations to works of art on our campus,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in a statement. “Such alteration represents an erasure of history, which is entirely inappropriate at a university. We are obligated to allow students and others to view such images, even when they are offensive, and to study and learn from them.”
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The carving has been on display over the entrance to the Sterling Memorial Library at the Ivy League School, in New Haven, Conn., since 1929. Yale’s Committee on Art in Public Spaces chose to cover the carving during renovations last year after faculty and experts concluded it depicted warfare and colonial violence against Native Americans.
Yale maintained it was not censoring history, as some critics claimed.
“Covering over the problematic aspect of this carving is not consistent with the principles subsequently adopted by the university,” a Yale statement said. “Therefore, when the carving is relocated, the covering stonework will be removed.”
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