Trustees Opt To Keep Witherspoon Statue, Call For Campus Art Review

The board follows a recommendation by the Committee on Naming, which said Witherspoon is ‘worthy of recognition, but not canonization’

Statue of John Witherspoon with East Pyne Hall in the background

The John Witherspoon statue, installed in 2001, stands outside East Pyne Hall.

Brett Tomlinson / PAW

By Julie Bonette

Published Oct. 2, 2024

4 min read

This story has been updated with reactions to the trustees’ Oct. 2 announcement.

Princeton’s Board of Trustees announced in October that the controversial statue of former University president John Witherspoon in Firestone Plaza will remain, though the trustees also announced that the Campus Art Steering Committee is now charged with performing a review of campus art, starting with the Witherspoon Statue.

The announcement comes after a two-year review of the statue by the Committee on Naming, which was prompted by a 2022 petition signed by 285 community members who called on the University to replace the statue because Witherspoon, Princeton’s president from 1768 to 1794, owned slaves. A clergyman and scholar, Witherspoon was the only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he led Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) during a critical period in the institution’s history.

Over the past two years, the Committee on Naming, a standing committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community that provides advice on naming and iconography to the Board of Trustees, solicited input from the University community through listening sessions and two symposiums — on Witherspoon’s life, with a particular emphasis on his views of slavery and abolition, and on the statue itself. Presenters offered a wide variety of perspectives on Witherspoon as well as options for the statue, from relocation to adding contextualization to destruction.

Related coverage

On the Campus

Scholars Debate John Witherspoon’s Contradictions on Slavery

‘In short, it’s complicated. Witherspoon is complicated,’ said Rev. Gordon Mikoski

The Committee on Naming determined that “John Witherspoon is worthy of recognition, but not canonization,” according to a statement by the trustees. The committee’s final report recommended the University provide contextual information with the statue to “reduce the glorification of Witherspoon by offering a more complex and accurate history” than is currently displayed, and also recommended the University consider relocating the statue.

Ultimately, the trustees decided “we do not believe that questions about John Witherspoon’s legacy provide sufficient ground for removal or relocation of the statue” but also that that “does not mean the statue should or must remain in its current state or location.”

The Committee on Naming endorsed a recommendation from the former Ad Hoc Committee on Principles to Govern Renaming and Changes to Campus Iconography — a group of trustees, students, faculty, and staff that met from 2020 to 2021 to develop principles about when the University should remove or contextualize representations of individuals honored on campus — to conduct a periodic review of “the educational and aesthetic qualities of campus artwork as well as how artwork is described.”

The Campus Art Steering Committee will conduct the review and start with the Witherspoon statue to address questions raised during the previous two years such as the scope and aesthetics of the statue. The committee, which was established in 2009, is co-chaired by James Steward, the director of the Princeton University Art Museum, and University Architect Ron McCoy *80.

Reaction from the campus community was mixed. Brendan Kolb, a graduate student and one of five members of the philosophy department who originated the 2022 petition, said he “respect[s] the time and thought that the Naming Committee put into their report,” but “the Campus Art Steering Committee now has the opportunity to make significant changes regarding the statue, changes that will make campus more welcoming and honest.”

Rachael DeLue, chair of art and archaeology at Princeton and one of the symposia presenters, said “the report outlines a range of possibilities and strategies for reckoning with the statue going forward. This is important, because to my mind doing nothing and maintaining the status quo is simply not an option.”

DeLue called the move to refer the matter to the Campus Art Steering Committee “judicious,” adding, “Monuments make meaning and wield power, and it is the responsibility of an academic institution like Princeton to help viewers understand this about the Witherspoon statue.”

Fellow symposia presenter Sean Wilentz, a professor of history, said the decision “plainly invites further controversy,” but he applauds that the committee “rejected tendentious repudiations of [Witherspoon] regarding slavery and antislavery.”

Wilentz cautioned, though, that should the statue be removed “on alleged aesthetic grounds” in future, it would “look to much of a candid world like a craven evasion of the fundamental issues at stake.”

The group Princetonians for Free Speech echoed that sentiment, writing in a statement that the report’s “detailed wording seems to imply that the trustees have ducked their duty by laying the groundwork for probable future cancellation of the Witherspoon statue on aesthetic grounds,” adding that “erasing history to promote someone’s view of ‘social justice’ does not advance knowledge or seek truth, the core purposes of a university.”

Bill Hewitt ’74, who has blogged about the issue, also said the University “wisely” decided not to move the statue, but “erred in referring the future” of the statue to another committee.

“The trustees made a thoroughly considered decision in 2000 to accept the proposal from the University of Paisley in Scotland to have two twin statues to honor John Witherspoon,” Hewitt said, and that was not for “his relationship to slavery, but rather [for] his contributions as an essential early president of Princeton, as an influential teacher of James Madison and others, and finally, himself, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.”

Published in the November 2024 Issue

Witherspoon Statue

8 Responses

Sharon N. Wedington ’75

1 Week Ago

Monuments Remind Us of the Past

I applaud the decision of the trustees to retain the statue of John Witherspoon in Firestone Plaza. I believe that monuments of negative “heroes” of our past at Princeton and throughout the U.S. should remain in place to remind us of the ugly history of our nation as it relates to the subjugation, discrimination, and dehumanization of individuals of African descent. Removing these statues could incline individuals with nefarious motives to attempt to rewrite history. Their presence serves to remind all of us of what author Jim Wallis refers to as “America’s original sin.” God forbid that we forget and repeat the sins of the fathers.

Richard M. Waugaman ’70

2 Weeks Ago

False Binaries for Historical Figures

Such controversies tell us something about ourselves — the way we prefer to idealize historical figures until we learn they, like everyone, have feet of clay. Cancel culture promotes false binaries of people being either good or evil. Life isn’t so simple.

Michael Otten ’63

1 Month Ago

Putting Leaders in Context

I find this movement on renaming repulsive and inappropriate for a university with history and philosophy departments, as well as art academicians. Most saints did not have impeccable behavior records, and I daresay that most “great” leaders (especially those with many statues in their “honor”) were somewhat narcissistic at best, and psychopaths all too often. Put things in context and stop this black-and-white inquisition. I wish Martin Luther King were around to straighten out his pretentious disciples.

Bob Durkee ’69

1 Month Ago

Witherspoon’s Transformative Impact on the College

In assessing John Witherspoon’s “life and legacy,” the CPUC Committee on Naming notes that the plaques on his statue’s plinth describe him as “preacher, patriot, and president.” It provides some detail on the significance of his theological writings, teachings, and sermons, and the manifestations of his patriotism as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress, and an educator of key political leaders. It also, very importantly, provides findings about his relationship to slavery, a relationship which is conspicuously absent from the plinth.

What it does not describe is the legacy behind the third plaque: Witherspoon’s transformative impact on the College of New Jersey as its president from 1768 to 1794 – the second longest tenure of any Princeton president, and longer than the combined tenures of his five predecessors.

When Witherspoon arrived, the college’s finances and its enrollments were precarious at best, and its survival was far from assured. Witherspoon traveled tirelessly throughout the colonies to bolster the college’s finances and its enrollment; appointed faculty in math and science; expanded the library; purchased scientific equipment; changed the composition of the student body by reducing the number of future ministers in favor of future public servants; encouraged students to go beyond rote learning and engage in debate; introduced teaching by lecture; and taught a wide range of subjects.

Witherspoon’s presidency gave the college eminence and instilled a commitment to learning and service that Princeton’s next transformative president, James McCosh, would build on 100 years later in turning the college into a university.

The Naming Committee makes well-considered recommendations regarding the siting of the Witherspoon statue in front of East Pyne Hall. A good case can be made for removing the statue from its plinth, or even finding it another home. But it may be helpful to note that one small contributing factor in choosing the statue’s current location across from McCosh Hall is that it placed these two transformative presidents in proximity to each other.

Editor’s note: The writer is the University’s vice president and secretary, emeritus.

Bill Hewitt ’74

1 Month Ago

A Split Decision

The Board of Trustees’ recent decision regarding the John Witherspoon statue merits both praise and criticism. Their refusal to remove or alter the statue is commendable. Dedicated by predecessor trustees in 2001 to honor Witherspoon, the statue should remain unchanged, regardless of artistic considerations. Recent scholarship has provided a more favorable historical understanding of Witherspoon’s relationship with slavery than was available in 2001, further justifying this decision.

Regrettably, the Trustees erred in delegating the fate of the Witherspoon statue to the Campus Art Steering Committee. Any alteration of the statue would constitute a damnatio memoriae of Witherspoon. An ominous portent in the Committee on Naming report is the troubling conflation of judgments about Witherspoon’s historical relation to slavery with those about the statue’s artistic merit.

For example, the report’s insistence (on page 41 and elsewhere) on “contextualization” (apparently a narrative devoted to Witherspoon’s relation to slavery) inappropriately influences its recommendations on the statue’s size and location. By the committee’s logic, the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial should be diminished likewise.

Furthermore, both the Trustees and the Committee on Naming disserved Princeton by failing to address the damaging falsehoods in the “John Witherspoon” essay of the Princeton & Slavery Project. This essay continues to misinform and misdirect public discourse, as evidenced even by the Committee’s report. The latter approvingly cited Princeton Township’s 2020 decision to remove Witherspoon’s name from a middle school. The school’s petitioners mistakenly relied on false claims from the “John Witherspoon” essay, including the incorrect narrative that Witherspoon did not oppose slavery in the New Jersey legislature. Princeton professor Sean Wilentz’s research has since concluded that “Witherspoon not only upheld this pro-abolition view, he acted on it.”

Disturbingly, the Princeton & Slavery Project has not updated its content to reflect Wilentz’s findings or other contributions from the April 2023 symposium, “John Witherspoon in Historical Context.” I commented online in PAW last fall and wrote the Trustees in May about these and other issues on the University’s depictions of Witherspoon. Neither the Trustees nor the University administration, to their shame, have acted to address the wrongful and damaging depictions of Witherspoon by the Princeton & Slavery Project.

My 39-page complaint filed with the University’s CPUC Judicial Committee against President Eisgruber and the Princeton & Slavery Project detailed breaches of duty regarding the Witherspoon essay. Filed last October, this complaint remains unaddressed by the Judicial Committee. This inaction, coupled with President Eisgruber’s and the trustees’ failures to act on these matters, raises fundamental and unanswered concerns about Princeton’s future commitment to historical accuracy, enforcement of its own rules, and fundamental fairness.

In conclusion, while the trustees made the right decision in preserving the Witherspoon statue for the moment, their handling of the surrounding issues and failure to address ongoing and damaging misrepresentations of the historical Witherspoon are deeply troubling. These actions and inactions pose significant challenges to Princeton’s academic integrity and its commitment to truth.