On Friday, a Harvard Law School committee tasked with reviewing the use of the school’s seal made a formal recommendation to the Harvard Corporation — which has final say over all decisions regarding Harvard University — in favor of removing the seal altogether.

Harvard Law School has faced controversy in the past few months due to its seal, which features the family crest of Isaac Royall, Jr., a prominent Massachusetts slaveholder whose sizeable bequest allowed for the school’s founding. The committee was formed in November of last year, after a group of Harvard Law students calling themselves “Royall Must Fall” called for the removal of the seal.

In February, another group of activists by the name of “Reclaim Harvard Law” occupied the school’s Wasserstein Hall, renaming it Belinda Hall after one of Royall’s slaves who won reparations for her enslavement.

In an open letter addressed to the Harvard Corporation on March 3, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow — who was recently awarded the annual Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize and spoke at Brandeis on Feb. 25 — supported the committee’s suggestion, writing: “I am impressed with the committee’s consideration of all these questions, and am confident all its members thought hard about compelling and competing arguments and conclusions.”

Minow ended her letter by inviting the Harvard Law community to continue to discuss the issue and tackle other social justice issues on and around campus.

“There are crucial suggestions here for how Harvard Law School should proceed in addressing the past and the future, whatever happens with the shield, and I will invite our community to take up this work,” Minow wrote.

—Abby Patkin