Princeton University has agreed to explore the removal of the name and images of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from buildings and school programs under a deal signed with protesters who objected to Wilson’s support of segregation, which was legal at the time. This action occurs as Harvard Law students have demanded the dropping of the school seal due to a connection to a slaveholder.
Princeton has long (and rightfully) been proud of its association with Wilson. Wilson, besides being the 28th President of the United States, was the thirteenth president of Princeton. He was also a member of the Class of 1879. As president, Wilson helped transform the school into a major world-class university, including a restructuring of departments and investment in new innovations and buildings. He was a brilliant academic whose writings are still widely cited (indeed, I have both praised and criticized those writings in different respects).
The recent protests were led by “Black Justice League” and involved a 32-hour sit-in outside Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s office. The students also demanded a cultural competency and diversity training program and to designate space on campus for “cultural affinity” groups. Eisgruber agreed to consider stripping the school of its most renown association and praised the protesters for their “willingness . . . to work with us to find a way forward”.
This would involve removing a large number of portraits and references, including Wilson’s name on the university’s world renown Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
While Wilson was a leader of the Progressive Movement he also supported racial segregation, which was not banned until the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I believe such an effort would unfair to Wilson and deeply regrettable for the university. Wilson was truly a great leader both for his achievements as an academic and a world leader. I have serious qualms about various views of Wilson including the position on segregation. There was also his support for the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 to suppress the war movement — leading to the Palmer raids. I have long been a critic of those Wilsonian era effects. However, his work also included his foundational work on the League of Nations and the creation of new international principles to avoid wars. He was a voice for incorporating moral principles into international law. Wilson was critical in moving American foreign policy from isolation to internationalism and many credit him with laying the bedrock principles for international law. He was a critic of European imperialism and called for national self-determination for ethic groups. While many may disagree with the policies, he also laid the foundation for banking reform under the Federal Reserve System as well as support for labor and collective bargaining. While many would later call his brand of idealism in international law naive, it was a different view of the role of international organizations. Indeed, while the League of Nations failed, it became a model for the United Nations. We can hold strong views against positions of past leaders like Wilson while recognizing that they played a transformative role in other areas like international law as well as academic contributions.
It is also important to note that segregation principles not just the majority viewpoint of Americans at the time but the law. Many people at the time — not the least of which was the United Supreme Court justices — believed that “separate but equal” was constitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was not handed down until 1954 in finding that segregation violated the Constitution. That was 30 years after the death of Woodrow Wilson.
The effort to sanitize our history ignores one of the key components of the intellectual exercise on campuses: to consider sources and writings in their historical and social context. This does not mean that Wilson should not be identified as a segregationist and his legacy balanced against such views. However, it is important to consider the time in which he lived and lead. There is much about Wilson to be celebrated and honored, particularly at the school that he helped make one of the world’s greatest educational institutions.
Obama is “fundamentally transforming” America.
Obama privately encourages anti-American forces from the IRS to the University of Missouri and everywhere
in between, including Muslims who are sworn to deny freedom of religion to believers of other faiths.
Why not just remove every last symbol of the Founding Fathers, previous Presidents and Americans in
general.
One thing America doesn’t need to be concerned with is nullifying and removing the Preamble, Constitution
and Bill of Rights.
The elimination of the dominion of the founding documents was presided over by the Supreme
Court long ago, as the principles of the Communist Manifesto were implemented throughout America.
For those too young to remember, here is a good article on the Chines Red Guard and the Cultural Revoltion.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Red-Guards
As famously quoted. by Santayana “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
This is why it is so frightening to see these misguided and ignorant students demanding that history be erased because it makes them uncomfortable. Erase your history and you have nothing to learn from or any guides on how to be better people than those in the past.
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/be/f0/8a/bef08a6c9d91794fbdb7d9e757581734.jpg
Max entirely misses the point of these posts regarding college protests and the caving in on the part of the cowardly administration to the demands of the protesters.
The issue is free speech and a free exchange ideas. Yes, the discussion is partly about perceived racial disparity on campus, but the bigger issue is the inability of supposedly intelligent young adults to even be able to tolerate any deviance from their ideology.
To demand that people either lose their jobs or kow tow and admit things that they don’t even believe in, strikes a parallel to the Communist China Red Guard movement. To insist that people agree with your mantra Black Lives Matter using force, is not an intellectual achievement. It is mob violence and vigilantism. To force the resignation of teachers who merely suggest that perhaps you might not fall over dead if someone is wearing an “insensitive” Halloween contest and that you might actually discuss with the offending costumer why you are offended is beyond stupid..
The suppression of free speech and the suppression of any ideas that might dissent or be uncomfortable goes completely against the purpose of an institution of higher learning. The colleges are being taken over by mob rule and the cowards in the administration are caving in.
Constant outrage over manufactured hate crimes. The inability to even consider or debate against the offending ideas and instead hyperventilate and need safe spaces with your blankey and bubbles is not the hallmark of rational adults but rather spoiled toddlers.
This is the point of the articles.
Max-1,
Airlines are charging extra for puke bags, due to ongoing ISIS threats as well.
I’ve had it. Are we to have no history? Shall we now fly to Africa to sort out which tribes sold which other tribes to the Arab traders? Princeton is foolish and weak. The protestors have become anti history fascists. Will they now demand that books be burned?
Look racism is terrible but people were the product of their times and cannot be judged by today’s standards.
I am offended and appalled by racist mysoginistic rappers. Will they also be banned?
I agree that Wilson was a terrible president in part due to his racist views and his failure at the Versailles peace treaty negotiations and regarding the subsequent ratification efforts for the League of Nations. However, he has been rated consistently as a “good” president in polls of academics who considered Wilson as a fellow academic and ignored his blatant failures. Recall that Wilson was a professor in political science and had published articles relating to presidential power. Somehow later political science professors were dazzled that one of them could be president of the United States.
It is interesting that now Wilson is pounded by both sides of the political spectrum. On one side the “liberals” have come to realize Wilson’s racism, while some in the right wing disparage Wilson as establishing the IRS.
Did Wilson do anything that ultimately was beneficial to the country? He did assert the power of the U.S. on the international stage, which provided a basis for the current position of the U.S. as the world leader. Before WWI the U.S. was a minor international player; after WWI the U.S. became a major power. So all of you supporters of the military industrial complex can thank Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson’s idealism did play a part in the ending of WWI in that his “fourteen points” became a basis for achieving the Armistice (i.e., it made it easier for Germany to agree), however those points were forgotten when Britain and France dictated the terms of the peace. Much has been said regarding the Versailles treaty as creating the stage for WWII. But look at today. That treaty also established the artificial countries in the Middle East (e.g., Iraq and Syria) to divide that area between Britain and France. And look how well that has turned out.
It is ironic that today Wilson probably would be a Tea Party Republican with his views on social policies and views on direct assertion of U.S. military power. In my view, they can have him.
Congratulations Mr. Turley
Four articles in a row taunting racial disparities in America.
Just reading the comments turn my stomach.
This is a pattern on your blog. I can’t help but notice the audience it attracts. Ugly bigoted people.
Paul,
We’ll see just how enlightened they want to become.
This is interesting. They are beginning to pull on the thread of progressivism, let’s see how far they are willing to unravel it.
Olly – Wilson is one of the pillars of progressivism. Is FDR far behind?
I find the idea that Wilson was any kind of Progressive an outright LIE and re-writing history. He was the most conservative of the candidates in his first election, which is why my grandfather voted for him. He ran against Teddy Roosevelt who WAS an actual Progressive and ran on the ticket of that name. Taft was a moderate Republican who represented the major business interests and hated unions and the ordinary folks as much as Wilson did. He also enforced the Anti-Trust acts. While it is true that socialists and progressives of that time had reflected the normal racist view of black Americans, by the time of that election, they had changed their positions.
His great achievement, The League of Nations was a farce from the beginning since it only sought to divide up the world between the victorious powers of WWI. It was explicit in denying ANY representation or consideration for the rest of the world which was the majority of humankind. The colonies of all those powers were given to the victors, and they had no chance of getting their freedom. Wilson also invaded the new Soviet Union to try and get rid of the Russian Revolution, but he was stopped by the striking workers who refused to load supplies for those troops. He failed at the Versailles Peace Conference and was thoroughly trounced.
I would be most interested in Prof Turley expounding on the “moral” principles” he codified into international law since I can see none. Let’s see. He thought it was good and proper for the US and other western nations to OWN foreign people and steal from them. He invaded the Soviet Union to try and restore the Czar to his throne. I guess that absolute monarchies are one of his principles? He expanded segregation in direct violation of the Constitution he swore to uphold. I may be ignorant of some of his good accomplishments, but I have found none. He needs to go and the truth about him told. He was a vicious man who only was concerned with his own class and welfare, not his country.
randyjet – much as I hate Wikipedia, they are calling you a liar and backing JT. You might want to take a look at their article.
I agree with Paul and will provide some historical context. Historical context is something that folks like JT and other southern people ignore. “UnReconstructed” is a term adopted by some folks after the Civil War and at the time, and after, the Reconstruction Era following the War. Three Constitutional Amendments were adopted: 13th which abolished slavery; 14th Amendment which made all citizens equal, except women, and this meant ending oligarchy and nobility; 15th Amendment which gave the Freedmen the right to vote. In some states a loyalty oath was required of state judges and office holders to swear to the new Constitution. Many quit or were removed from office. Today there are many who remain UnReconstructed. There are judges who refuse to adopt federal jurisprudence in criminal cases on sufficiency of evidence in a circumstantial evidence case. They do not want their state courts to recognize the 14th Amendment.
On to UnReconstructed Woodrow. The 14th Amendment was the law. Yet he enacted segregation laws and policies for the federal government and the military when he was President. He is the nit wit who led us into WWI and promised to Make The World Safe For Democracy. Woodrow had this oligarch view of himself and wore those dork glasses. I did not say “dark”. Some people think that their itShay does not stink. Woodrow is the scion of such folks. They can be born in Virginia, go to Princeton, Harvard or Yale, wear their dork glasses, belong to country clubs and of course look down on darkies as they call them.
Woodrow should be dug up and his body thrown into the ocean. JT: re-examine what you said today and perhaps go to the mental ward for some pills.
Next target is Albert Einstein at Princeton. Father of atom bomb. But I find a video that shows how he helped a black lady. Check video @ the 0:25 mark.
Bunch of puppets.
In what world was Wilson a great leader? For segregation and the goal of southern Progressives to disenfranchise black Americans? Certainly. As a president? Hardly. He was the Jimmy Carter of his time.
The first thing he did as president was to segregate all agencies and fire virtually all of the black Americans. He encouraged the Klan and did nothing to resist a growing lynching epidemic. He illegally invaded Mexico then left after achieving nothing. He only entered WWI after the Zimmerman telegraphic showed what a naïve fool he’d been. He did not lead, he was led by circumstance. He’s way overdue for approbation.
The students might have read this quote along the lines of this one from the great Progressive Democratic and Princeton Professor of History:
“Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes. The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of self-preservation — until at last there sprung into existence a great Kuklux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” Wilson, The History of the American People (1901).
Modern parenting run amok! Their parents wanted to be their “friends”. This is what happens when parents are worried about their children not “loving” them. Parents in the 1950’s had lives of their own. Now parents raise entitled, spoiled, back sassing monsters. Very few parents “get it”. Our country in in trouble and me thinks our own president may have been raised in this way. Kids today are self-centered wimps. What will happen when they get out in the real world. People can’t change history but need to keep it in prospective. Poor kids gotta get a grip!
This is so enjoyable to me to watch the unhinged Left eat their own.
Wilson is responsible for resparking the KKK with his glowing review of “Birth of a Nation.” His failure to achieve his goals at the end of WWI brought us WWII. I can support this movement. 🙂
Never liked Wilson’s policies (or the consequences of his actions), but he belongs in the liberal pantheon – they are eating their gods.
I am enjoying the spectacle of liberals revealing their true nature.
The problem is that we trying to judge Wilson against today’s standard, which is probably unfair.
THe Science Geek
http://www.thesciencegeek.org
Wow, the Progressive in Chief. One of the founders of the progressive movement. You didn’t mention that he also had women who were peacefully demonstrating for the right to vote, in front of the White House, beaten and arrested. Well Democrats, perhaps you reap what you sow.