News Update

Trinity College Dublin to take Berkeley name off library; UC Berkeley has no plans to change its name

Trinity College Dublin, a university in Ireland, will remove the name Berkeley from its main library on campus, The New York Times reported. The university concluded that George Berkeley, whom the library is named after, owned slaves in colonial Rhode Island, according to the Times.

The University of California, Berkeley, was also named for the 18th-century philosopher, but a spokesman for the campus told the Times that it has no plans to change its name.

“We acknowledge that the university’s founders chose to name their new town and campus after an individual whose views warrant no honor or commemoration,” said the spokesman, Dan Mogulof. He added that the name Berkeley “has come to embody and represent very different values and perspectives.”

The provost of Trinity College, Linda Doyle, said in a statement that the Berkeley name conflicts with the college’s values.

“George Berkeley’s enormous contribution to philosophical thought is not in question,” Doyle said. “However, it is also clear that he was both an owner of enslaved people and a theorist of slavery and racial discrimination, which is in clear conflict with Trinity’s core values.”