Another "Brand" Problem?

Faithful blog readers will recall the outrageous situation in which students making a documentary dealing with events on the UCLA campus decades ago were prevented from using the name "UCLA" because it was deemed bad for the "UCLA brand."* UC-Berkeley now has a brand problem. Readers will also recall that UC-Berkeley has dropped the names of buildings and schools when the views of people from whom the names derived had pro-slavery views or other views on issues of their day that are no longer accepted.**

As the accompanying issue shows, the New York Times recently ran an article about George Berkeley - yes, the Berkeley after which UC-Berkeley is named - noting the Trinity College Dublin is pulling his name off the library there because of his pro-slavery views.*** From the Times:

George Berkeley

...The University of California, Berkeley, was also named for the philosopher [Berkeley]. According to the Berkeley Historical Society, trustees of the then-private college settled on naming it after him in 1866, inspired in part by his missionary zeal and a poem he wrote:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:

Time’s noblest offspring is the last.

Several years ago, Berkeley renamed two buildings dedicated to former faculty members tarnished by racism, but there has been no serious discussion at the university of changing its own name...

Now to yours truly, "Westward the course of empire takes its way" has a certain pro-colonial ring to it, apart from Berkeley's other problematic views. But, to preserve its "brand," UC-Berkeley could follow the example of its one-time southern branch and just emphasize the letters in its name: UCB. Just a modest suggestion...

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/04/can-such-things-be-part-2-ucla-creates.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/04/can-such-things-be.html.

**Example: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/02/moses-goes-down.html.

***https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/world/europe/george-berkeley-trinity-college-dublin.html.