Harvard Law gets green light to ditch shield with slaveholder crest

A Harvard University governing board led by President Drew Gilpin Faust is allowing Harvard Law School to retire a controversial shield that is based on the crest of a family that owned slaves in the 18th century.

In a letter Monday, the Harvard Corporation endorsed an HLS committee’s recommendation to retire the shield, which is the coat of arms of the family of Isaac Royall, the man responsible for Harvard’s first professorship of law. Royall’s father is known to have treated his slaves…