Bowdoin College drops Jefferson Davis Award UPDATE: Chronicle Education does article on Bowdoin dropping the UDC. Discusses other university with UDC connections. Mentioned in article.

The law college at Bowdoin College in Maine has dropped the Jefferson Davis award and is giving the award's endowment back to the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

https://bangordailynews.com/2015/10/22/news/midcoast/bowdoin-college-drops-award-honoring-confederate-president/?ref=moreInpolitics

The UDC each year would mention the award and who got it in their magazine. It has been on my to do list to write all the U.S. military service academies asking them to stop working with the UDC. This will be a good article to send along with that letter. Precedent often has an effect on decision making.

However, this event is important for other reasons than that its elimination makes other such awards seem anomalous and a cycle which works to make the Confederacy less and less legitimate as the elimination of one thing leads to the elimination of other Confederate things.

This is the effect on the UDC itself. As the award is rejected, the UDC is rejected. Giving the award to Bowdoin College gave the UDC prestige with its membership. Rejection not only reduces one item for which annually the giving of the award was also giving the UDC prestige. There is an old saying, "We honor others to honor ourselves."  I am not sure it is always true, but with UDC their giving an award was always self-promotional.

As the UDC finds its awards rejected it loses prestige among its members.

UPDATE:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/bowdoin-ends-confederate-heritage-award-like-many-still-offered-by-u-s-service-academies/106066

Article brings up the U.S. Military service academies and the fact that they work with the UDC and the fact that the awards are named after racists.