Amherst College no longer acknowledges its namesake.

Lord Jeff pondering who to kill next.

Lord Jeffery Amherst was a colonial-era military commander for Great Britain in North America and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces for the crown during the Seven Years' War. In case you're foggy on your numbered-year wars, the Seven Years' War was between those two quarrelsome jamokes, England and France. Lord Amherst was a key figure in the war, where he oversaw key victories in then-French territories like Montreal and Quebec City.

Lord Jeffery Amherst was also not a friendly and benevolent man. He wanted to eradicate the Native American population by dishing out smallpox-coated blankets and implored Great Britain to "try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." Swell guy.

But benevolence in warfare doesn't win you fame, and fame doesn't exist 250 years ago unless you have a variety of cities and towns in America named after you, especially in the northeast. Take Amherst, MA, named after Lord Jeffery and home to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst College, and Emily Dickinson's agoraphobic ghost.

Except now Amherst College is looking to distance themselves from any association to Lord Jeffery and his use as the school's unofficial mascot. As a number of students, school officials, and the New York Times are quick to point out, Amherst College wasn't named after Lord Jeffery. The college was named after the town! Not the same thing!

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Try not to get a headache overthinking this one. There's a thousand arguments that could be made to kick Lord Jeffery to the curb, but your head will throb if you try to disassociate the town and college's naming origins.

Lawsuit claims teaching assistants at Amherst College were encouraged to sleep with undergrads.

There are a few things I think we all associate with Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson, people speaking Spanish, and pure, carnal, sexual heat. And if you can picture all three of those at once, you're not only mildly disturbed, but you're envisioning a seemingly average day in the rural hinterlands of western New England.

Dimaris Barrios-Beltran is a former lecturer for Amherst College. 'Former' because she was recently let go from her position in the Spanish department after, she alleges, refusing to give into a culture of potential sex with undergraduate students to make the department look more appealing. This differs from your average English department, where wallowing in poetry while wearing Birkenstocks is par for the course. Subtle difference in cultures, to be sure.

According to the Washington Post, department supervisor Victoria Maillo is described in the suit as looking online for "pretty faces" to hire as teaching assistants in hopes of attracting more students to study Spanish.

As the Post explains:


"Early in 2013, Barrios-Beltran’s teaching assistant called her in tears, according to the lawsuit, saying that Maillo was treating her like a prostitute. The teaching assistant claimed that Maillo was angry that she was dating a student at the University of Massachusetts and told her and other teaching assistants to go to parties with students and sleep with them to encourage them to take Spanish. Barrios-Beltran claims that in frustration, the teaching assistant asked Maillo if she wanted her to sleep with a different guy every night like another teaching assistant was doing, and the teaching assistant told Barrios-Beltran that Maillo responded, 'that is what I brought you here for.'"


Amherst College claims they let Barrios-Beltran go solely because of declining enrollments. Or, if you're paying attention to this story, for exactly the same reason why Maillo is alleged to have been trying to counteract while channeling her inner madam.

In the end, both women no longer work for Amherst College. English majors? Still wallowing in poetry.