The College of the Holy Cross has decided to get rid of its Christian knight mascot due to concerns that the mascot is historically linked to violence committed by Christians during the Crusades, Fox News reports.
The Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts announced its decision in a letter last week, saying that "the visual depiction of a knight, in conjunction with the moniker Crusader, inevitably ties us directly to the reality of the religious wars and the violence of the Crusades.”
“This imagery stands in contrast to our stated values,” writes school president Rev. Philip Boroughs. “Over the coming months, the College will gradually phase out the use of all knight-related imagery.”
Holy Cross will now be using "the interlocking HC on a purple shield, currently the secondary athletics logo, as the primary marker for all athletic teams, uniforms and advertising," and "will retire our costumed mascot," says Boroughs.
Students also voted to change the name of the school paper “The Crusader” in February because of concerns of “growing anti-Muslim tensions in our country, and to the fact that the Ku Klux Klan official newspaper shares the same name as our own.”
The Board of Trustees sought to continue using the “Crusader” moniker to represent the college, arguing that while the Crusades were “among the darkest periods in Church history,” the college considers its students, staff, and faculty “Holy Cross Crusaders” who fight “for human rights, social justice, and care for the environment; for respect for different perspectives, cultures, traditions, and identities; and for service in the world, especially to the underserved and vulnerable,” Campus Reform reports.
Nonetheless, the school eventually succumbed to the pressures of political correctness.
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