Princeton to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from school over race views

Princeton University will remove the name of former US president Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school because of his segregationist views.

The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Picture: AP

Princeton University has announced plans to remove the name of former US president Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school because of his segregationist views, reversing a decision the Ivy League school made four years ago to retain it.

Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber said in a letter to the school community on Sunday (AEST) that the board of trustees had concluded that, “Wilson’s racist views and policies make him an inappropriate namesake” for Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and the residential college.

Dr Eisgruber said the trustees decided in April 2016 on some changes to make the university “more inclusive and more honest about its history” but decided to retain Wilson’s name, but revisited the issue in light of the killings at the hands of police of George Floyd and other African-Americans.

Wilson, governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, US president from 1913 to 1921, supported segregation and imposed it on several federal agencies not racially divided up to that point. The Democrat also barred black students from Princeton while serving as university president from 1902 and 1910 and spoke approvingly of the Ku Klux Klan.

Woodrow Wilson in 1924. Picture: AP

Earlier this month, Monmouth University of New Jersey removed Wilson’s name from one of its most prominent buildings. The superintendent of the Camden school district also announced plans to rename Woodrow Wilson High School.

“Wilson’s racism was significant and consequential even by the standards of his own time,” Dr Eisgruber said, adding the former president’s segregationist policies “make him an especially inappropriate namesake for a public policy school.”

The trustees said they had taken what they called “this extraordinary step” because Wilson’s name was not appropriate “for a school whose scholars, students, and alumni must be firmly committed to combating the scourge of racism in all its forms”.

The school will now be known as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, he said.

Princeton had already planned to close Wilson College and retire its name after opening two new colleges now under construction but will change its name to First College immediately.

Dr Eisgruber said the conclusions “may seem harsh to some” since Wilson is credited with having “remade Princeton, converting it from a sleepy college into a great research university”, and he went on to become president and receive a Nobel prize. But while Princeton honoured Wilson despite or perhaps even in ignorance of his views, that was part of the problem. “Princeton is part of an America that has too often disregarded, ignored, or excused racism, allowing the persistence of systems that discriminate against black people,” he said.

Four years ago, a committee gathered input from more than 600 submissions before concluding Wilson’s accomplishments merited commemoration, so long as his faults were also recognised, and said using his name “implies no endorsement of views and actions that conflict with the values and aspirations of our times.”

Princeton will retain Wilson’s name on an award that stems from a gift that requires the prize be named for Wilson and honour his “conviction that education is for ‘use’ and the high aims expressed in his phrase, ‘Princeton in the Nation’s Service’.”

Floyd died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis policeman pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes even as he pleaded for air and stopped moving.

AP