Educator calls for ban on word over “the racial and gendered weight it carries"
Several students at Yale University have reportedly left
campus due to the school’s use of the word “master,” a “racist” term
according to professor Stephen Davis.
Davis, whose current title is “Master of Pierson College,” officially called for a ban on the word Friday due to “the racial and gendered weight it carries.”“I
have found the title of the office I hold deeply problematic given the
racial and gendered weight it carries,” Davis said. “I think there
should be no context in our society or in our university in which an
African-American student, professor, or staff member—or any person, for
that matter—should be asked to call anyone ‘master.’ And there should be
no context where male-gendered titles should be normalized as markers
of authority.”
As explained by the Daily Caller, the term has long been used by Yale to describe leaders in the university’s 12 residential colleges.
“Yale
organizes its undergraduate students into one of 12 different
residential colleges, which are a core feature of daily life at the
school,” the Daily Caller’s Blake Neff writes. “Besides having their own
dormitories, each residential college also has a separate dining
facility and library, and can organize its own special events.
Additionally, each college has a master, typically drawn from the
school’s faculty, who lives in a special house allotted to them on
campus.”
Davis went on to claim that several students were so
damaged by the mere utterance of the word that they were forced to leave
their dormitories and live off campus.
“I have heard stories and
witnessed situations involving members of our community who have felt
viscerally marginalized by this linguistic practice: students who have
felt it necessary to move off campus their junior or senior year to
avoid a system where the title ‘master’ is valorized; faculty members
who cringe at this aspect of our college culture; tea guests who perform
subtle and dexterous verbal gymnastics to avoid having to say the
name,” stated Davis.
The attempted ban is reminiscent of several other campaigns including the Seattle government’s infamous call for ending the term “brown bag.”
