Holy Cross drops "knight" mascot because of Christian violence during the Crusades

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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.

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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."

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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.

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In accordance to this, the college also changed the name of the school newspaper from The Crusader to The Spire. 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.

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