Queen's hypocrisy

Re: Queen's trustees vote to remove Macdonald's name from building, Oct. 20, and

Sir John A. Macdonald Hall meets cancel culture, Bruce Pardy, Oct. 14

The decision by Queen's University to remove the name of John A. Macdonald from its law school building is an act of hypocrisy.

The name of Queen's University commemorates the British monarchy, which supported and profited from the African slave trade for centuries. If Macdonald's policy on Indigenous people, including residential schools from which he did not profit, disqualifies his name for a law school building, how is it that the record of the British monarchy in profiting from the slave trade for centuries does not disqualify the name of Queen's for the university?

Stripping the name of Macdonald from a law school building panders to the political correctness zeitgeist of our times. It makes altruistic fools feel good about themselves while doing nothing meaningful to address racism.

The greater affront to current social values is the name Queen's itself. The university protects its commercial brand name for its self interest while throwing Macdonald under the bus.

It is a disingenuous act of academic hypocrisy and surrender to the tyranny of political correctness over critical independent thought, the cornerstone of academic institutions. While renaming its law school building, Queen's should change the name of the university so it can be known and ridiculed as the university formerly known as Queen's. James Duffus (Law '76), Calgary