Egerton Ryerson’s name is inextricably linked to the legacy of murder and abuse within Canada’s residential schools, as he is often cited as the system’s principal designer through his role as the country’s first Chief Superintendent of Education starting in 1844. This relation made the university a target of a nationwide protest movement which eventually took down a statue of the educator in a well-publicized June 2021 kerfuffle.

The rebranding was the product of a working group called Standing Strong (or Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) that convened with a 22-strong list of recommendations a year ago. Over 2,000 unique names (including the temporary 'X University' moniker) were considered in a public consultation. Dr. Eva Jewell, an Indigenous faculty member who detailed her own past experiences with racism at the school, tells University Affairs it "signals a willingness to listen and an attentiveness to the issues of our time."

"It’s all still to come, because the slogan that they’re using now is ‘a new chapter’. That signals to me a willingness to change and to shift the culture, which I think is really positive," Jewell said back in May. "But these institutions do not change on their own volition, on their own morality. They change because marginalized communities, racialized Black, Indigenous communities, two-spirit communities enforce them."