Brown Faculty Considering Holiday Name Change

Brown University faculty members are scheduled to vote this week on whether to rename the holiday once known on campus as Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day.

The Ivy League university in Rhode Island in 2009 dropped the Columbus Day designation and changed the name of the holiday to Fall Weekend.

But some people think the renaming didn't go far enough. Efforts are underway across the country to drop Columbus Day, which some say ignores centuries of oppression of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

Brown associate professor Linford Fisher tells The Providence Journal that Fall Weekend was only a "halfway measure," aimed at "stifling controversy" and the name should be changed to honor Native Americans.

The faculty vote is scheduled for Tuesday.