The group demanded that the university erase just about all references to Wilson on campus and "rename Wilson residential college, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs, and any other building named after him."
Princeton University is facing a struggle over its legacy.
Several weeks ago, members of the Black Justice League, an African-American civil rights group on campus, and their supporters staged a 32-hour sit-in at the office of university President Christopher Eisgruber. They demanded that the Ivy League bastion acknowledge the racist views of Woodrow Wilson, who served as the school's 13th president and went on to become governor of New Jersey and later president of the United States.
The group demanded that the university erase just about all references to Wilson on campus and "rename Wilson residential college, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs, and any other building named after him."
The BJL further requested that the mural of Wilson by removed from the Wilcox dining hall.
That Wilson supported what today would be considered blatant racist and segregationist views have been well-documented. Wilson grew up in Georgia during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. He defended the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan as a necessary organization to counter the "lawless" situation after slavery was abolished in the post-Civil War South.
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During his time as head of Princeton University in the early 20th century, Wilson considered it unlikely that blacks would even consider applying to Princeton, because it would run counter to "the whole temper and tradition" of the university.
As New Jersey's 38th governor, he refused to confirm the hiring of blacks in his administration.
When he was elected the nation's 28th president, Wilson reneged on a promise to "assist in advancing" the interests of blacks by dismissing a number of black supervisors from federal jobs and supporting segregationist policies in government departments.
Yet in contrast to his racist's beliefs, Wilson was a champion of progressive liberal reforms that were dubbed the "New Freedom."
Wilson also was ahead of his time by pushing for the creation of the League of Nations, the precursor to today's United Nations. His lofty ideas to promote democracy were perhaps naive, but he saw a need for nations to come together to prevent conflicts such as the recently ended Great War that later was designated as World War I when a second worldwide war made it necessary to use Roman numerals to differentiate them.
The quirk about history is that it is not static. Sure, the dates and facts of the past may be set in stone, but the reasons why those facts came about are usually subject to fluid interpretations, both positive and negative.
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The recent protests over Wilson bring into focus the larger question of how communities deal with their pasts. Should the town of Princeton, for example, change all references to John Witherspoon, a founding father of our nation and former president of what today is Princeton University, because he was a slave owner?
History should not be sanitized to accommodate the sensibilities of today. Simply expunging people who played an important role in our past does little to help educate future generations about how we got to here we are now.