Harvard Law School has educated some of the important and impactful progressive figures in our nation’s history.
Barack Obama, the first black President learned the law there, so did the first African-American female Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
But despite its esteemed reputation, Harvard Law has had a dark secret hiding in plain sight since the 1930s.
The law school’s official seal was recently discovered to have been inspired by the seal of a notorious and brutal slave owner- Isaac Royall.
The Royall family seal features three sheaves of wheat, which also appears in the Harvard seal. Photo Credit: Harvard Press
The seal depicts three “sheaves” of wheat, which according to the Boston Globe is a direct derivative of the Royall family crest.
After a racial incident rocked the campus last fall, students started to organize to remove the seal.
On Friday, a commission of students, faculty and alumni recommended to change the official seal.
Here’s what the official seal looks like:
“The Harvard Corporation just received the recommendation from the Harvard Law School faculty committee late this week. It will review the recommendation and make a determination in due course,” Jeff Neal, a Harvard University spokesman told the Boston Globe in an e-mail.
RISE NEWS will continue to follow this developing story.
Cover Photo Credit: Harvard: Royall Must Fall/ Facebook
Do you believe that institutions of higher learning should remove official seals or change names of buildings that were inspired by slave owners? Tell us in the comments below:
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63 Years, 217 Days: Queen Elizabeth Becomes UK’s Longest Reigning Monarch
As of 5:30 p.m. yesterday BST, Queen Elizabeth II officially entered history as the UK’s longest reigning monarch, surpassing the reign of her great grandmother Queen Victoria.
Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne in February 1952 following the death of her father, King George VI.
The queen has avoided any formal ceremony and instead spent the day by marking the opening of the new Borders to Edinburgh railway with her husband, Prince Philip. In a short speech the queen stated, “Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones – my own is no exception – but I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness.”
In a special address to Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to the queen’s many years of service stating-
“I do think it is right that today we should stop and take a moment as a nation to mark this historic milestone – and to thank Her Majesty for the extraordinary service she has given to our country over more than six decades.
Her Majesty the Queen inspires us all with her incredible service, her dignified leadership and the extraordinary grace with which she carries out her duties.”
Queen Elizabeth II has been on the British throne for 63 years and 217 days.
Cover Photo Credit: Michael Gwyther-Jones/Flickr (CC by 2.0)
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Why Young People Should Care About PTSD (It Doesn’t Just Impact Soldiers)
By Stephen Goth
Posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD is a mental illness that can develop after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, terrorism or other threats on a person’s life.
Symptoms can include disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and hyperarousal.
These symptoms tend to disturb the everyday actions in a person’s life. Whether it be relationships, friendships, performance at school, performance in a job, or even something as simple as sleeping, nothing feels the same when you’re actively living with PTSD.
Many times, people who develop PTSD are at a young age, and are unaware of the traumatic damage their brain is enduring. PTSD can form from something as simple as a single event i.e. divorce, or even the collection of various traumatic occurrences, such as bullying.
According to Matthew Tull, a Posttraumatic stress disorder expert, many people with PTSD experience memory-related difficulties.
They may have difficulty recalling certain parts of their traumatic event, or alternatively, memories may be vivid as if the person is reliving the event in the present.
People with PTSD may also have problems overcoming their fear response to thoughts, memories or situations that are reminiscent of their traumatic event. Due to the hippocampus’ role in memory and emotional experience, it is thought that some of the problems people with PTSD experience may lie in the hippocampus.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Lesley Goth who runs her own private practice outside of Denver, CO, specializes in treating clients who are diagnosed with PTSD.
She believes when trauma occurs at a young age, long-term effects show up in all social, emotional, and physical areas of their lives.
For example, trauma that is experienced at a young age, can result in poor school performance, poor social interaction, and an overall feeling of lack of safety, which can ultimately lead to low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
When the feeling of lack of safety grows and grows and eventually becomes so intense, the victim of trauma turns towards dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Many addictions stem from the heavy need to numb out the suffering and agony that is caused from the memories of the traumatic events.
This is an important issue in today’s society, as many people try to cope with trauma through substances, and a variety of addictions. The most recent one being social media.
“Social media is a way that people can numb out from their pain and live in a false reality that is much more tolerable,” Dr. Goth said.
In conclusion, treatment is possible, and therapy can often times repair the unprocessed wounds.
EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, is a frequently used type of therapy used to help process unresolved issues.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. Anyone can write for you us as long as you are fiercely interested in making the world a better place.
Cover Photo Credit: Beverly/ Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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Japan Needs To Have A Lot More Sex Or The Country Could Collapse Into The Sea
The Japanese population is rapidly declining.
The population has lost almost one million people over the past five years.
This decline has been long predicted by demographers but the world’s third largest economy has been unable to find a solution.
The situation is dire and hard to overstate.
If Japan can’t start having many more babies then the country will face great challenges later on in the century. These challenges could undermine the very core of the country’s social order.
Japan has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, 1.41 children per woman in 2012.
As a result, the number of people 65 and over has increased from 12.1% in 1990 to 26% in 2014.
Furthermore, estimates put Japan’s retirement age population at 40% of the total national population by 2060.
This would likely put a tremendous burden on Japan’s social safety net, state pensions alone being ¥792,100 per year ($6,960.76). This accounts for nearly 33% of Japan’s national budget in 2015 and it will only continue to balloon as the years roll on.
Having to cope with close to half of your population being in need of geriatric care is not a problem exclusive to Japan.
There is a lot of pressure on young people in Japan to have more children. But will they listen? Photo Credit: J3SSL33/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
China recently revoked and replaced its One Child Policy, with the Two Child Policy.
In part this is to combat China’s low fertility rates, 1.66 births per woman, and in part to counter act the imbalance between the number of men and women, a 30 million person disparity.
Other low fertility countries include, but are not limited to: Singapore (0.81), South Korea (1.18), Germany (1.44), Russia (1.61), The United States (1.87), and the United Kingdom (1.89). All of these nations have fertility rates incapable of sustaining their current populations without immigration helping to offset the disparity.
Elderly populations then are not only a threat to the economic growth of Japan, but to advanced economies in general.
It would then seem that in order to combat global population decline, and with a greater number of developing nations creating advanced economies, nations may need to compete for immigrants in order to sustain their populations.
This may be particularly difficult for Japan, due to the relative difficulty in learning its national language, and a culture that is not as used to welcoming immigrants as many of its potential competitors.
Of course the other way for Japan to get back to an equilibrium in terms of old and young is to have young people have more children- lots more children. The government has tried many different methods, including offering to pay parents to have kids, but it has had little impact.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. Anyone can write for us as long as you are fiercely interested in making the world a better place.
Cover Photo Credit: Freedom II Andres/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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