Controversy invaded the College of the Holy Cross, a private Catholic Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Mass., after the school has abruptly decided to remove its traditional logo and mascot, Iggy the Knight, on account that it references the medieval Crusades.
The decision comes as Holy Cross President Rev. Philip Boroughs issued a letter to students, alumni, and staff at the school on March 14, conveying that the image of a crusader knight is a negative reminder to the controversial religious clashes and violence that ensued during the Crusades hundreds of years ago. According to Campus Reform, the crusader was voted as the school symbol by students as early as 1925, replacing the former Native American mascot at the college, along with changing the school newspaper from The Tomahawk to The Crusader in 1955.
Regarding the reasoning behind this decision, Rev. Boroughs argued in his statement, “The visual depiction of a knight in conjunction with the moniker Crusader, inevitably ties us directly to the reality of the religious wars and violence of the Crusades … over the coming months, the college will gradually phase out the use of all knight related imagery.”
This mandate by Rev. Philips and the College Board of Trustees has resulted in many to question if Holy Cross is caving into pressure from outside political forces from the Left, in an effort to mandate that schools remove any anti-Islamic references perceived as being Islamophobic. In phasing out the former Crusader logo, the school will now look to its secondary athletics logo – an interlocking “HC” set on a purple shield – which will be used for athletic teams, uniforms, and advertising.
In accordance to this, the college also changed the name of the school newspaper from The Crusader to The Spire, a day before the original statement was issued throughout the school. Apparently, the decision was inspired by the spires of Fenwick Hall, being the oldest and central most building on campus.
“It should be noted that this decision was made independent of the college administration, and with no knowledge of what the Board of Trustees will decide in their upcoming meeting on the Crusader mascot and moniker this Saturday,” a statement released by the paper explained.
The editorial board of the paper admitted that their decision to change the paper’s name was largely inspired by a controversy that occurred a year earlier where a letter of petition was circulated throughout the school and signed by nearly 50 faculty members, arguing that “The Crusader” was also the name of a KKK publication and should be changed.
Despite such reasons to remove reference to the Crusades, the College Board and the editorial staff refused to list any specific reference of Islamophobia or ethical violation to the school regarding the Crusades which spurred their unilateral decision.
As a current college student majoring in History, I recently took a course on the European medieval Crusades and conquests and learned that the western Christian knights first launched the Crusades in 1095 in response to the aggressive Seljuk Turkish forces invading the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe. The Western Crusaders put aside their former rivalry and animosity toward the Byzantine Christians and marched thousands of miles across Europe to protect Byzantium and recapture the many besieged holy cities of Antioch, Edessa, and Jerusalem, formerly seized by the Muslim Turks expanding westward into Europe.
The fact that the Crusades are being depicted negatively and as violent villains by the administrators at Holy Cross is evidence of either a lack of historical understanding toward the profound good that the crusader knights represented in their noble quest to liberate the holy land, or a newfound regard by administrators to purge anything perceived as Islamophobic from American schools.
