The irony is that the university’s namesake, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was the individual in whose “honor” the term “robber baron” was created. His business practices were so utterly ruthless that he even hired a soldier of fortune by name of William Walker to invade Nicaragua and overthrow its feeble government in order that he (Vanderbilt) could build an overland freight route from the Caribbean to the Pacific ocean by way of Lake Nicaragua which, prior to the Panama Canal, would have been the fastest and cheapest route to get goods to the west coast of America. Walker succeeded (on his second attempt), declared himself President of Nicaragua, and re-instituted the practice of slavery.
“The Commodore saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
It beggars imagination how they could find the term “Confederate” distasteful when every building on campus as the name “Vanderbilt” on it.
good post