As college students across the country press their institutions to confront the experiences of campus minorities, law schools and their students and alumni are increasingly being drawn into the debates.

On Monday, Harvard Law School announced the formation of a committee to consider whether the school should continue to use as its seal a shield that was once the family crest of Isaac Royall Jr., a Massachusetts slave owner who endowed Harvard's first professorship of law.

A group of Harvard Law School faculty will determine “whether the Royall crest should be discarded from our shield,” said the school's dean, Martha Minow, in a statement. “Through that process, we will gain a better sense of what course of action should be recommended and pursued, and we will discuss and understand important aspects of our history and what defines us today and tomorrow as a community dedicated to justice, diversity, equality, and inclusion.”