A university in New Jersey will strip Woodrow Wilson's name from a campus building because of the "racist policies" he supported while president. Monmouth University announced on Friday that it would remove Wilson's name from one of the most prominent buildings on campus after university trustees voted four years ago to allow the name to stay.
"The context has changed," university president Patrick Leahy told the New York Times. "Wilson was a controversial politician, and I think it has heightened awareness in 2020 about some of his racist policies."
Wilson, who was the president of the United States during World War I, served as the governor of New Jersey and a president of nearby Princeton University before being elected president. Princeton's board of trustees voted in 2016 to keep Wilson's name on-campus buildings.
Historians have argued about whether Wilson, a Democrat, was a white supremacist as he appointed several segregationists as heads of various departments throughout the executive branch. Hettie Williams, an assistant professor of African American history at Monmouth, recommended the campus remove his name from the campus building.
"[Wilson] was behind his own times on race and many scholars have concluded that," Williams said.
The board of trustees agreed that the building should be renamed as the Great Hall at Shadow Lawn. That name had been given to a building in the same location before Wilson moved into the place during his 1916 reelection campaign. The original building burned down, and the mansion built in the same location was named after Wilson.
"Wilson was a controversial politician, who never actually set foot in the current building,” Leahy wrote in his announcement of the decision to rename the building. “Removing his name, and incorporating these earlier names, connects the centerpiece of our campus more accurately to our historical roots and eliminates a symbolic barrier to the important work of creating a truly welcoming and inclusive space in the Great Hall.”
Wilson's name was also recently removed from a high school in Camden, New Jersey. Officials throughout the country have been renaming facilities and removing statues that were dedicated to historical figures with viewpoints that have been deemed controversial by protesters. The changes have been part of a larger, nationwide movement calling for an end to police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a white officer knelt on his neck for several minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
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Poster Comment:
This is yummy in a horrible, fateful sort of way. Wilson flies high among 'heroes' of national self-immolation and globalism. "He gave us the LEAGUE OF NATIONS," admirers sob.
The bean-counters of gliberal insanity will never be satisfied with less than 100% peecee -- an African Studies prof has complained and must be satisfied! Wilsonputatively got us through a world war but it's not enough to save this U.S. president from historic obliteration. Hey, he was still white!
I'm sure Monmouth "university" is a flyspeck. The only thing I ever heard about it in 37 years in Jew Jersey was that girls there were ugly -- this from two car wash attendants talking. This sure looks like a nothing school trying to get relevant. Will bet there are outside agitators involved.