On the Campus Speaking Out on Wilson

Arvin Anderson '59 Says:

2016-03-14 11:18:30

One last effort: keep his name on the buildings, change the name of the school of international and public affairs. His problems extend from racism and opposing women's suffrage to the post-WWI partition of Eastern Europe (Balkans) and the Middle East with the imperial colonial powers to lead to many of the problems of the late 20th century.

Gordon F. Schwartz '56 Says:

2016-03-14 11:49:48

Leave things alone!!

John W. Minton Jr. '50 Says:

2016-03-14 15:24:39

Some blacks are offended by the connection of Woodrow Wilson to Princeton University. I am offended by the bad statuary of MLK Jr. on the Mall in DC. Dr. King was named after an avowed anti-Semite racist, and he saw no need for changing his name. The statue should have been one of Rosa Parks. It is time to get over our offenses and move on. It is much more productive than organizing a protest.

Lambert Heyniger '53 Says:

2016-03-14 15:25:40

As a Princeton and SPIA undergrad and grad student, I firmly believe we should keep Wilson's name on the School. His history at Princeton and as U.S. president merits it.

Francis Kwok '66 Says:

2016-03-15 15:46:39

Whatever happened is history. This is the 21st century; we should look forward, not backward for progress. Wilson's name should remain.

Stokes Carrigan III '52 Says:

2016-03-16 09:41:03

So Wilson was a racist. So what. You could probably say the same about Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Bobby Lee or any other historical figure who owned slaves. As I have written to President Eisgruber, we should not try to rewrite history. Wilson did many good things for Princeton and should continue to be honored, not erased.

Hugh Marlais Davies '70 *76 Says:

2016-03-23 09:27:45

As a founder of Wilson College in the '60s, I believe the college should be renamed out of respect for the many blacks, Jews, gays and others regarded as "lunch meat" who were rejected by the club system or rejected the club system.

Robert Buntrock *67 Says:

2016-03-23 09:33:39

I believe that Wilson's name should remain on the buildings and on the school. Wilson obviously had his faults, but so did his contemporaries. His peacemaking efforts after World War I were well-intentioned and probably toned down the severity of the reparations. John Minton: As a lifelong Lutheran, I take offence at your terse summation of Martin Luther. If it weren't for him, we'd probably all be paying homage to the pope. Sure he had his faults, but helped bring on the age of Enlightenment.

Patrick Walsh s'88 Says:

2016-03-23 10:06:25

While there's no stronger indictment against Wilson than the facts of his discriminatory record as president of the United States, I found it instructive to analyze arguments made by some in his defense. 1) The students are trying to "rewrite" history and "airbrush" Wilson out of it. This argument cleverly undermines the students in two ways. First, it makes them appear quite foolish for attempting something so obviously and utterly impossible. It also slyly introduces a communist flavor to their motivations. We're all familiar with how the Soviets and Chinese expunged party leaders who had fallen out of favor, literally airbrushing their faces out of official photographs. The "rewrite" argument is false for the simple reason that it imputes an objective to the protest which the students never intended, let alone pursued. They aren't trying to scratch Wilson's name from the roster of former Princeton University presidents; they're not out to delete his name from the list of past New Jersey governors or American presidents; and they sure as hell don't want to pretend he never existed. The students' goal is to remove from a school of public policy the name of a man who did as much as he could in his official capacity as American president to thwart public policy when it concerned African Americans. 2) It's unfair to judge Wilson by our contemporary moral standards. This argument provides further testimony to how poorly we educate our citizens, especially when it comes to our country's history. But here goes ... Woodrow Wilson became president in 1913, not 1813. The Civil War ended nearly 60 years before he took office. Wilson's order to end integration throughout all federal government agencies, as well as his efforts to keep blacks from obtaining new Civil Service jobs, reversed policies enacted from the Reconstruction era onward, including those of his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt. Forget about 2015. Wilson's racist deeds were inexcusable in 1913. By any standard, including those of his own era, his actions were retrograde and utterly reprehensible. 3) Wilson's name should remain on the school as a teaching point. Here's one of the most slippery defenses of Wilson's poisonous legacy. You picture a docent standing near a granite inscription reminding people as they read Wilson's name that he caused terrible hardship for thousands of African Americans by booting them from their jobs or denying them employment. But what lesson are we teaching here? That a man whose racist actions as president caused tremendous suffering and reversed nearly 60 years of post-Civil War progress still gets to keep his name on a school at a prestigious university? The kindergartner would be first to ask: "If Wilson was such a bad man, why is the school still named for him?" 4) This protest is a witch hunt. Everyone has flaws. Many of the Founders, including George Washington, owned slaves, so where does this kind of thing end? Ah yes, the old Slippery Slope Fallacy, a favorite tool of fearmongers everywhere. To begin, this argument -- a tiresome logical fallacy -- once again imputes goals to the students which they have no intention of pursuing; it attacks them for hypothetical results of which there is absolutely no proof of causation. As to the notion of a witch hunt, the students aren't petitioning the University because Wilson wrote racist comments in his personal letters or made disparaging remarks about blacks to his cronies at the club. They're asking for his name's removal because he acted upon his racism as president. To bring the Founders into this argument is spurious. George Washington died in 1799, 114 years before Wilson took office. But the peanut gallery conveniently forgets: Washington freed his slaves. Over time, he grew morally opposed to slavery. In a 1786 letter to his friend Robert Morris, for example, he wrote: "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery." As retirement approached, Washington arranged his will so that on his death his slaves could receive their freedom. In a 2004 review in The New Republic, historian Gordon Wood justly wrote: "He did this in the teeth of opposition from his relatives, his neighbors, and perhaps even Martha. It was a courageous act, and one of his greatest legacies." 5) It's always been named for Wilson; why change it now? I’d be willing to bet that most Americans had never heard of Princeton University's public policy school until this protest gave it national attention. For the record, Princeton created a program of Public and International Affairs as an interdisciplinary course of undergraduate studies in 1930. In 1948 -- 24 years after Wilson died -- Princeton added a graduate-degree program and renamed the school in Wilson's honor. Woodrow Wilson didn't name the school for himself; others chose to name it for him, others can choose to name it for someone truly worthy. Are we shackled to the past? I sure hope not. Does 67 years constitute a hallowed, immutable tradition? Hardly. Besides, there’s no statute of limitations on righting a wrong. How would Jewish students feel about walking through the gates of the Henry Ford School of Journalism? Or a gay man framing a diploma from the Roy M. Cohn Law School? Imagine as a Cheyenne or Lakota Sioux you’ve earned a spot at the George Armstrong Custer Academy of Military Science. Or perhaps you’re a woman -- straight, gay, Hindu, Muslim, it makes no difference -- and you’re assigned a room in Pat Robertson Dormitory. Then again, think of all the "teaching opportunities" if, say, the University of Alabama opened a George Wallace Institute for Racial Integration or Ole Miss endowed a professorship called the Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price Chair in Criminal Justice ...