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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Princeton decides not to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from schools and colleges

Brian Leiter

The Trustee Committee report, in full, is here.  It has interesting details both about his accomplishments (including securing the right to vote for women, and the 8-hour workday), his willingness to appoint Jews and Catholics to the faculty, and, of course, his virulent anti-Black racism.  I have not read the entire report, I should note.  If anyone has time to read it all, comments are open.

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8 responses to “Princeton decides not to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from schools and colleges”

  1. LK McPherson

    It would be helpful to know whether Princeton decided to add plaques that summarize the words and deeds of Wilson's "virulent anti-Black racism," as a modest counterbalance to the tradition of prominently honoring him for his "accomplishments."

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  2. Dean C. Rowan

    Legal History Blog just announced this, too, including a link to an exhibit that should begin to address the concerns mentioned above by LK McPherson: http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/in-nations-service-woodrow-wilson.html

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  3. LK McPherson

    From that Legal History Blog announcement: "The report also recommends that the Wilson School and the Wilson residential college continue to bear Wilson’s name, and stresses that Princeton must be 'honest and forthcoming about its history' and acknowledge 'Wilson's failings and shortcomings as well as the visions and achievements that led to the naming of the school and the college in the first place.' As a first step in that last task, the exhibit In the Nation’s Service? Woodrow Wilson Revisited opens today in the Bernstein Gallery, where it will run through October 26."

    A gallery exhibit (at the Woodrow Wilson School) that runs through October 26 hardly begins "to address the concerns" I mentioned. Whatever its underlying motives, that approach kind of looks like a PR effort to whitewash through transitory, obscure acknowledgment.

    The plaque proposal, by contrast, represents a permanent "honest and forthcoming" type of acknowledgment — one of more appropriate gravity in response to the monumental honoring of proslavers, archsegregationists, Third Reichers, and the like. So any information about whether the Princeton report recommends such an approach would be helpful.

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  4. Keith Whittington

    The report not only calls for a permanent plaque on Wilson, but a longer-term effort to diversify "iconography" on campus more broadly, from statues to portraits to building names. It also launches several additional initiatives (beyond those already in planning from a diversity committee established a couple of years ago), ranging from the symbolic (modifying the Princeton motto that dates from a Wilson speech to incorporate language from a Sotomayor speech) to the expensive (launching an expansive program at preparing underrepresented minorities to enter the academic pipeline to grad school and eventually faculty positions, essentially to expand the national pool of potential minority academics).

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  5. LK McPherson

    Thanks much for the information, Keith Whittington. That is welcome news. Of course, I'm very interested in what the plaque will say. Some of the other initiatives you describe have the potential to be impressive as well.

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  6. Daniel Kaufman

    Good to hear that there is at least some pushback against this sort of madness. The anachronistic, revisionist approach to history, from the perspective of contemporary values, if taken to its logical conclusion, will result in such a widescale exercise in purging that we can kiss the very idea of great predecessors goodbye, in every area. Down will come all the friezes and statues of Plato and Aristotle, because, of course, they were misogynists, racists, classists, etc. Down will come the monuments to MLK because he was a homophobe. Ditto for the first generation of Founding Fathers. The original women's rights acvitivsts — some of whom were eugenecists. And on and on. It's appalling — a kind of radical iconoclasm that is more reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of the great Buddhas in Afghanistan than of anything resembling liberalism.

    Better for everyone to grow up a little and understand history for what it is and people for what they are. When we admire people from the past, we understand that they lived in times during which values may have prevailed that we do not accept today. That understanding is part of the package. Unfortunately, this common wisdom seems to have all but been lost, so it is a welcome sign to at least see one institution that is refusing to go along — or at least, to go along entirely.

    BL COMMENT: I'm not sure this is a fair assessment. Wilson was a virulent racist *even by the standards of his time*, not just ours. But I'll let others weigh in.

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  7. Daniel Kaufman

    Brian: Wilson is hardly the only person whose monuments and statutes are under attack, and my point was intended to be somewhat general.

    As for Wilson, a lot of the stuff flying around about him today is more excited then it is entirely accurate. There's a bit of caricaturing going on.

    Bill Scher wrote a good essay on this.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/11/23/princeton_dont_erase_woodrow_wilsons_name_128819.html

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  8. Michael B

    Was Plato a misogynist?

    To be fair, those values which may have prevailed were probably not shared by the slaves as commonly as shared by the masters. Which is, I take it, kind of the point. Especially since in e.g. Athens (to stick with those two Greeks) slaves outnumbered masters.

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