Confederate Names in the Memorial Atrium

Allen Guelzo ends his article on Princeton and the Civil War by wondering whether it was wise to include the Confederate dead in the Memorial Atrium, adding that it’s a question that “Princeton still struggles with.” Really? Are we to have a campaign to excise those names? If so, let’s not stop there: Perhaps we should invalidate the degrees of the students from slaveholding parents, and, while we’re at it, take a close look at the presidents who allowed all those racists in in the first place.

However, I detect a note of uncertainty in the statue-topplers as they attempt to reach the moral high ground. Have all those efforts to dismantle Confederate memorials done a single thing to improve the life of a Black person in this country? I have yet to hear of one. On the other hand, the toppling of a statue of a current head of a teachers’ union might have some positive results in the lives of some people.