Prestigious American university Harvard is considering removing a line from its ceremonial song that references its Christian heritage. A Harvard professor claims the lyric could be racist, but a U.K. academic has described the proposal as “morally disoriented.” Harvard takes its name from John Harvard, who emigrated with the Puritans to the United States in the 1600s and left his academic books to the institution after his death.
‘Truth, Light, Love‘
“Fair Harvard” is sung when students begin at the university and when they graduate.
“Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side,
As the world on Truth’s current glides by,
Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love,
Till the stock of the Puritans die.”
Harvard’s ‘Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging’ is now running a competition to create a new ending to the song as they claim it currently “suggests that the commitment to truth, and to being the bearer of its light, is the special province of those of Puritan stock.” And while they say they do not want to “write Puritans out,” they state they can imagine a line without any reference to them. READ MORE
