Princeton University is to remove the name of former United States President, Woodrow Wilson’s name from the institution’s School of Public and International Affairs, stating he was a racist who foisted segregation on the country’s Public Service.
Trustees of the Ivy League university situated in New Jersey said they had considered “whether it is acceptable for this university’s School of Public Affairs to bear the name of a racist who segregated the nation’s Civil Service after it had been integrated for decades”.
The trustees said the question had become more urgent due to the recent deaths of black people in police custody “which have served as tragic reminders of the ongoing need for all of us to stand against racism and for equality and justice”.
President of the university, Christopher Eisgruber said the decision came after a “thorough, deliberative process”, five years after a group of student activists occupied his office in protest against the faculty’s dedication to Mr Wilson (pictured), who served as President from 1913 to 1921.
Mr Wilson is credited with improving educational standards at Princeton and he was honoured with the creation of a faculty dedicated to public and international affairs studies, as well as a residential complex.
While he is remembered as a progressive, internationalist statesman, his reputation is clouded by his racist policies in other areas of Government.
Mr Wilson segregated Federal workers in Washington, blocked a proposal to include racial equality as a founding principle in the League of Nations, and hosted White House screenings of the racist 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which celebrated the founding of the Ku Klux Klan.
He was seen as accepting of brutal racial segregation in the south as a way of keeping the peace.
Trenton, 29 June 2020
