Stanford to Remove the Name of a Catholic Saint due to Colonialism

Stanford University will rename buildings and other parts of its campus and remove the name “Juniperro Serra” from them, due to the controversy that despite being a founder of the California mission system and a Catholic saint, he allegedly forcibly converted Native Americans to Christianity and beat them to cleanse them from sin. However, critics do not acknowledge he also punished himself as a part of the cleansing-from-sin process and was not as repressive as Spanish colonial soldiers and administrators.