Despite it having zero ties to slavery.

Via NY Times:

The title “house master” as used by generations of Ivy League students to describe their residential administrators is fast becoming an anachronism. Harvard University announced Wednesday that, in a spirit of diversity and “an inclusive community,” the term was being replaced with “faculty dean.”

The title of “master” had come under fire by some students and others at Harvard and other universities, including Yale and Princeton, for conjuring connotations of slavery, although its roots are from centuries-old European terms for a teacher, chief servant or head of household.

“Never before had the house leaders been so united in their belief that such a change is important to our efforts to create an intellectually, socially, and personally transformative experience for our students,” Michael D. Smith, dean of the Harvard faculty of arts and sciences, wrote Wednesday in a long, searching email to faculty and staff members and to students.

He said the change did not necessarily mean that the old title was “wrong.”

“I have not been shown any direct connection between the term house master and the institution of slavery,” he wrote. Nor, he said, was Harvard repudiating the “inspiration” it took from European institutions or capitulating to student demands.