After a 32-hour protest by student activists, Princeton University administrators agreed Thursday to consider removing the name of pro-segregationist former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson from campus buildings.
The Washington Post reported that university president Christopher Eisgruber agreed to many of the protesters’ demands, including training staff to understand cultural differences and providing a cultural space for black students. President Eisgruber will also coordinate with the school’s board of trustees to discuss the campus legacy of Wilson, an alumnus and onetime president of the University.
Wilson’s name currently graces the school’s prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs and a residential college, while a mural of the former president hangs in a dining hall.
The culmination of the students’ marathon sit-in was marred by an anonymous bomb threat, which The Post reported was linked to their protest. After issuing a safety alert to students, the university’s official Twitter account announced Friday morning that the threat had been deemed “not credible” by campus security.
Update: The #PrincetonU Dept. of Public Safety reports that last night’s threat against the University has been deemed not credible.
— Princeton University (@Princeton) November 20, 2015
The protest at Princeton came amid a wave of heightened racial tensions at campuses across the country, including Georgetown University, the University of Missouri, Yale University and Harvard University.
And obviously, the name Jefferson must be scrubbed from US history, because slavery.
And Lincoln. He held racist beliefs.
And Washington as well. He owned slaves and didn’t he–gasp!–father a child with a slave? You know, I completely understand the issue of the confederate flag, and even the confederate generals, but this is going too far.
…and Washington and perhaps as many as a majority of all presidents who supported the idea of white supremacy even if they never owned slaves.
While I understand the motivation to not celebrate people who held objectionable views, neither white-washing history, nor throwing away all the good done by the man who created the League of Nations (and, if he’d had his way, it would’ve been far closer to the modern UN w/peacekeeping authority, rather than the toothless debate club that was enacted), serve the interests of a society that seeks not to repeat the mistakes of the past.