Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    Student Housing
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Campus Climate

In Sticking With Woodrow Wilson, Princeton Seeks to Contextualize His Legacy

By Corinne Ruff April 5, 2016
Visitors walk through an exhibit titled “In the Nation’s Service? Woodrow Wilson Revisited” at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The university announced on Monday that it would not remove the former president’s name from the school, but also acknowledged a need to describe his controversial legacy in a more balanced and historically accurate way. It will also undertake diversity initiatives to “achieve meaningful changes in campus climate and culture.”
Visitors walk through an exhibit titled “In the Nation’s Service? Woodrow Wilson Revisited” at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The university announced on Monday that it would not remove the former president’s name from the school, but also acknowledged a need to describe his controversial legacy in a more balanced and historically accurate way. It will also undertake diversity initiatives to “achieve meaningful changes in campus climate and culture.” Mel Evans, AP Images

Princeton University has decided not to strip Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s public-policy school and a residential college, defying student protesters who objected to what they called a celebration of the racist legacy of the university’s 13th president.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Visitors walk through an exhibit titled “In the Nation’s Service? Woodrow Wilson Revisited” at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The university announced on Monday that it would not remove the former president’s name from the school, but also acknowledged a need to describe his controversial legacy in a more balanced and historically accurate way. It will also undertake diversity initiatives to “achieve meaningful changes in campus climate and culture.”
Visitors walk through an exhibit titled “In the Nation’s Service? Woodrow Wilson Revisited” at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The university announced on Monday that it would not remove the former president’s name from the school, but also acknowledged a need to describe his controversial legacy in a more balanced and historically accurate way. It will also undertake diversity initiatives to “achieve meaningful changes in campus climate and culture.” Mel Evans, AP Images

Princeton University has decided not to strip Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s public-policy school and a residential college, defying student protesters who objected to what they called a celebration of the racist legacy of the university’s 13th president.

In making the decision, announced on Monday, the university’s Board of Trustees adopted a special committee’s report on the issue. Along with the recommendation that Wilson’s name stay on the campus, the trustees endorsed four initiatives to “achieve meaningful changes in campus climate and culture.” Among them: a recommendation to install an educational marker outside the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to elaborate on Wilson’s legacy — as president of Princeton and, later, as president of the United States — and the diversification of campus art and iconography to honor “those who helped make Princeton a more inclusive place.”

Before putting together the final report, the committee sought input from scholars and the public. It received 636 public comments and nine reports from scholars of American history. But after reading the final report, some of the scholars didn’t find a lot to like.

Nathan D.B. Connolly, an associate professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University, said he was disappointed. The report shows “no acknowledgment of the harmful consequences of Wilson’s intellectual work,” he said in an interview. The university’s stress on “diversity” and “inclusion” amounted to little more than buzzwords, he said, and suggested the initiatives would not be enough to create a better cultural climate on the campus.

“There is no discussion of what Princeton’s role was of shaping inequality around the world,” Mr. Connolly said about the university’s report, adding that Wilson’s legacy wasn’t discussed as much as was Wilson the man. “Recognizing his legacy is not to say he made unfortunate decisions,” he said, “but that his particular brand of curricular reform and governance, his particular brand of foreign relations created a century of negative consequences for people of color.”

Mr. Connolly suggested that the university install a series of monuments that acknowledge both “the good and the bad that can be done in Princeton’s name.” For example, he suggested there be a recognition of the American occupation of Haiti, begun in 1915 under Wilson as U.S. president, as well as the demotion or firing of African-American civil servants under his administration.

Eric S. Yellin, an associate professor of history and American studies at the University of Richmond, also sent a report to the committee. He said he wasn’t surprised by the university report’s vague description of how Princeton will present the legacy of Wilson and what events it will choose to acknowledge. In order to truly create an inclusive campus, he said, Princeton needs to understand the key difference between venerating and remembering.

“I hope what is in that big claim is that they will recognize to venerate Wilson is to deny history and fail to grapple with not just his complexity, but the fact that there were victims of his point of view and his power,” he said.

A ‘Racist Legacy’

The special committee was created in November after student protesters demanded that the president of the university, Christopher L. Eisgruber, consider the “racist legacy” of Wilson on the campus.

ADVERTISEMENT

In an interview with The Chronicle in November, Destiny Crockett, a Princeton junior and member of the Black Justice League, said the group had sought public acknowledgment of that legacy. “We know changing a name doesn’t dismantle racism,” she said. “But Woodrow Wilson has been lionized on this campus, and having his name on the public-policy school isn’t OK.”

In an online statement posted on Monday, President Eisgruber called the report “thorough and perceptive.” He added: “While I continue to admire Wilson’s many genuine accomplishments, I recognize the need to describe him in a way that is more balanced, and more faithful to history, than this university and I have previously done.”

A university spokeswoman, Min Pullan, said trustees would monitor how the initiatives are carried out through a new committee.

The efforts, while well intentioned, are going to take time, and lots of it, said W. Fitzhugh Brundage, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Brundage, whose institution is also struggling to come to terms with connections to racism in its history, said it could take decades to adequately diversify the iconography of a campus.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Chapel Hill campus features several pieces of Confederate iconography — epitomized by a statue of a Confederate soldier known as “Silent Sam.” A stone’s throw away from that marker stands another statue, the Unsung Founders Memorial, which was erected in 2005 to honor “the men and women of color — enslaved and free — who helped build Carolina.” While the memorial wasn’t meant as a direct rebuttal to “Silent Sam,” Mr. Brundage said, that’s how many view it today.

But this is only one monument, he said. How many are enough to say a campus is inclusive? And how will the university sustain such a commitment as a priority over time?

Those questions are particularly difficult for Princeton, said Mr. Brundage, given Woodrow Wilson’s pervasive presence at the university. “He is so conspicuously incorporated into the identity of the university,” he said, “that this is a challenge.”

A version of this article appeared in the April 15, 2016, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

In Explaining Confederate Symbols, Colleges Struggle to Summarize History
Torn Over Tactics: Activists Refine Their Demands as Protests Over Racism Spread

More News

Protesters gather outside the Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 14, 2025 to protest the Trump administrations cuts at the agency.
An Uncertain Future
The Education Department Got a Green Light to Shrink. Here Are 3 Questions About What’s Next.
Susie West and Dianne Davis-Keening, U of M Extension SuperShelf coordinators.
A 'Connector' Severed
Congress Cut a Federal Nutrition Program, Jeopardizing Campus Jobs and Community Services
PPP 10 FINAL promo.jpg
Bouncing Back?
For Once, Public Confidence in Higher Ed Has Increased
University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. It is the latest in a series of House hearings on antisemitism at the university level, one that critics claim is a convenient way for Republicans to punish universities they consider too liberal or progressive, thereby undermining responses to hate speech and hate crimes. (Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP)
Another Congressional Hearing
3 College Presidents Went to Congress. Here’s What They Talked About.

From The Review

Photo-based illustration with repeated images of a student walking, in the pattern of a graph trending down, then up.
The Review | Opinion
7 Ways Community Colleges Can Boost Enrollment
By Bob Levey
Illustration of an ocean tide shaped like Donald Trump about to wash away sandcastles shaped like a college campus.
The Review | Essay
Why Universities Are So Powerless in Their Fight Against Trump
By Jason Owen-Smith
Photo-based illustration of a closeup of a pencil meshed with a circuit bosrd
The Review | Essay
How Are Students Really Using AI?
By Derek O'Connell

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin