We are the students of the “Where #BlackLivesMatter meets #MeToo: Violence and Representation in the African Diaspora” class. We have been learning about the history of the pervasive anti-Blackness and sexual violence in our country and abroad. Ironically while learning about these topics all semester, we have been in a classroom within Yawkey Athletics Center, which is named after a person with a racist history. 

Thomas Yawkey was the President of the Red Sox from 1933 to 1977. Having authority over the team’s policy on integration, he held off on promoting Black players from their farm system for almost a decade, leading to the Red Sox becoming the last major league baseball team to integrate. He also protected clubhouse attendant Donald Fitzpatrick from allegations of sexual abuse of Black boys who participated in the clubhouse.

Considering Thomas Yawkey’s history and the recent and ongoing acts of state sanctioned police violence against Black people, we petition Boston College to remove the name Yawkey from the Yawkey Athletics Center. Although the Yawkey Foundation has contributed a lot of money to both the stadium and to student grants, we believe leaving Yawkey’s legacy behind and looking to future beneficiaries is the right course of action. All across the country, monuments and military bases named after Confederate generals have been renamed. Here in Boston, the Red Sox have changed Yawkey Way to Jersey Street and Roxbury has renamed Dudley Square, previously named after a man who profited from slavery, to Nubian Street. Our peer institutions have listened to the times, with Princeton University’s renaming of Woodrow Wilson College to Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. In the face of this historical moment, we ask Boston College to participate in this widespread change occurring throughout our nation, and to be on the right side of history.