Boston University students all appreciated the long Columbus Day weekend. With six weeks of listening, writing and reading for classes done and with midterms fast approaching, most students likely spent the weekend relaxing, partying or gearing up for a tough few weeks. But how many students actually thought about why they had a third day to rest? Probably not many.

Many students are introduced to American history with lessons about Christopher Columbus’ “courageous” voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety two,” many students memorize. They are informed that Columbus shattered the myth that the world is flat and told he “discovered” America.

But most are not taught about his enslavement and killings of many of the land’s previous inhabitants — the people he named “Indians,” showing his mistaken belief that he had, in fact, made it all the way to Asia. Most elementary school curricula downplay the fact that large populations of Native Americans already inhabited the land when Columbus’ three ships arrived on the shores of the Americas.

While recent years have brought a more balanced version of history to many textbooks and most college students are well informed of Columbus’ transgressions, America’s national holiday in the man’s memory remains. Though many businesses and organizations ignore it, the day is still an official holiday. It should not be. Americans should come to terms with our ancestors’ terrible treatment of the continent’s original inhabitants and either eliminate the holiday altogether or rename it appropriately to remember the Native American victims of American history.

BU’s observation of the holiday is made even more ridiculous by the fact that the school does not observe Veterans Day in early November. Rather than remembering the truly courageous efforts of United States soldiers, BU commemorates a national holiday dedicated to a much more controversial figure.

Don’t get us wrong — we enjoyed yesterday’s break. But Boston University should choose a different day to give its students a break around midterms. Why not simply calling the day off “pre-midterm break,” or “fall break,” as many colleges and universities do?

Boston University students need and deserve a school day off in October. But the university should officially recognize America’s troubled history and avoid celebrating the life of Christopher Columbus.