Althouse: "The Princeton University Board of Trustees voted on Friday to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s School of Public and International Affairs."

June 27, 2020

"The Princeton University Board of Trustees voted on Friday to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s School of Public and International Affairs."

"It acted because Wilson’s racist opinions and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars, students and alumni must stand firmly against racism and for equality and justice.... Wilson... discouraged black applicants from applying to Princeton. While president of the United States, Wilson segregated the previously integrated federal civil service.... Wilson helped to create the university that I love. I do not pretend to know how to evaluate his life or his staggering combination of achievement and failure. I do know, however, that we cannot disregard or ignore racism when deciding whom we hold up to our students as heroes or role models. This is not the only step our university will be taking to confront the realities and legacies of racism, but it is an important one. Our commitment to eliminate racism must be unequivocal, and that is why we removed the name of Princeton’s modern-day founder from its School of Public and International Affairs."

From "I opposed taking Woodrow Wilson’s name off our school. Here’s why I changed my mind" by Christopher Eisgruber, the president of Princeton (in WaPo).

67 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...: That will show Woodrow Wilson!; 6/27/20, 7:18 PM
Oso Negro said...: Well, there you go. Now do Yale and Harvard.; 6/27/20, 7:24 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Good. Now do Yale and Harvard.; 6/27/20, 7:27 PM
Unknown said...: Hope Obama notes the tread of the mob coming after his fellow presidential Nobel laureates; 6/27/20, 7:28 PM
Chris Lopes said...: What problem could they have with a guy whose favorite movie featured the klan as the good guys?; 6/27/20, 7:35 PM
Michael K said...: Wilson is the Progs patron saint. Also an old Confederate.; 6/27/20, 7:43 PM
n.n said...: Was he a diversitist, of what degree? Was he an abortionist, a Planner? Was he a proponent of redistributive change, of retributive change, of affirmative discrimination? Did he favor politically congruent constructs? Did he normalize social justice (i.e. relativistic) anywhere is injustice everywhere? Was he a follower of the Progressive Church and Pro-Choice religion? Just a few of the questions that must be answered before we indulge witch trials, warlock judgments, and cancel culture.; 6/27/20, 7:45 PM
Not Sure said...: Eisgruber's statement said: Wilson’s racist opinions and policies make him an inappropriate namesake...

I can't respect an Ivy League prez who doesn't know the difference between "namesake" and "eponym."

Fucking subliterate dipshit.; 6/27/20, 7:53 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Do we get to go through the list of famous people of the 20th C who enabled & did PR for the regimes who murdered millions of their own citizens?

When we do and the excluded list gets combined with all the racists, we're going to be naming buildings after Rin-Tin-Tin because he'll be the only innocent left.; 6/27/20, 7:58 PM
Richard Dolan said...: Wilson was no prize, and was undoubtedly racist (in its plain-English meaning) to the core. Whether to name an institute after him today is not quite the same thing as whether to strip his name off an institute named for him years ago. But it is amusing to see all of these bastions of wokiness trying to come to terms with their own sordid history, which (remarkably) is described by the 1619 narrative better than the history of the country in which those institutions have flourished. So many of their wealthy, WASPy donors, from their founding to mid-20th century, who built those institutions and whose names now adorn their buildings and endowed professorships, were as not-woke as Wilson (OK, he was at the extreme end, but still).; 6/27/20, 8:03 PM
Readering said...: Shorter answer: I changed my mind in order to get on with my job.; 6/27/20, 8:07 PM
Sebastian said...: "Here’s why I changed my mind"

Here's why he changed his mind: he couldn't stand the heat.

Nothing had changed. No new "arguments" were raised. But when faced with a serious prog attack, libs fold.; 6/27/20, 8:09 PM
Megaera said...: So, all this shocking behavior was completely unknown until - what, yesterday, today, when they suddenly leapt up like a bunch of galvanized frogs, sprang into action and now suddenly poor old Woody is a non-person? And surely this can't be the end of it ... there will have to be a Stalin-model excision from the history books, Wilson-shaped lacuna in the political record ... they must surely understand that there's no stopping now or their racism is made manifest all over again.

Betcha the clown car staff at Yale is starting to sweat bad. I suspect that FLOYD UNIVERSITY isn't going to be quite the diploma draw that Yale used to be. Might even have to break into that endowment a bit, just to keep the numbers right.

Any suggestions for grounds of attack on Harvard? Because we need to see that the fun is spread ALL the way around, far as it can go.; 6/27/20, 8:12 PM
Mark said...: "I opposed taking Woodrow Wilson’s name off our school. Here’s why I changed my mind" by Christopher Eisgruber

The reason you changed your mind is because you are an insincere weasel elitist that could not really give two sh*ts about the plight of Black people, but have heard the sound of the mob.

Where have you been all these years??? Wilson is only now a problem? Because it took all this for you to see how much that Wilson was a racist, segregationist piece of sh*t -- you too Herr President need to go. RESIGN NOW.; 6/27/20, 8:15 PM
minnesota farm guy said...: I have never been a Wilson fan. I thought the League of Nations was an "airy fairy" scheme that essentially tried to deny human nature. His post war leadership was weak (of course he was non compus for at least the last two years of his term) leading to events that almost guaranteed WWII. I was somewhat aware of his racism, but not to the extent that is revealed in the letter. Nonetheless erasing a significant historical presence to assuage a temporary feeling of guilt means that rather than discuss Wilson warts and all we will just dump him into the dust bin of history and learn nothing from the good and bad that he represents. Short sighted and stupid.

Now, renaming Yale really interests me. Old Elihu was not only heavily involved in the slave trade, but a commercial scoundrel as well! As a graduate of Harvard College ( and currently not a big fan) I will enjoy watching the twists and turns in New Haven. Fortunately John Harvard for whom the College was named was a clergyman whose most significant action, as far as anyone knows, was leaving a bequest and his library to the college formed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Yale's first "colored graduate was a Richard Green Class of 1857. How appropriate to rename Yale after him!; 6/27/20, 8:17 PM
rcocean said...: Woodrow Wilson was POTUS. He wasn't a slave owner and he was commander-in-chief during WW I. Every scholarly poll of historians/political professors has placed him in the Top 10 US presidents. But now, some guy called Eisengrupper says he's no longer fit to be associated with Princeton.

Wow. Notice this isn't black people doing this, its white, VERY white liberals doing this. How much longer before Ike and Reagan are erased from the public square?; 6/27/20, 8:18 PM
gspencer said...: Politically speaking, 1913 was the worst year in the nation’s history,

Four disastrous events,

February 3, 1913 – the 16th Am (income tax) became part of the Constitution

March 3, 1913 – Democrat Wilson became president; Wilson the internationalist made the hard break from Americanism (government’s sole role being to protect natural rights), and set America on the pattern of endless world wars with America as the world’s policeman

April 8, 1913 – the 17th Am (direct election of federal senators) became part of the Constitution

December 23, 1913 – the bill creating the Federal Reserve became law; signed by Wilson the internationalist; 6/27/20, 8:18 PM
Ken B said...: Distraction. The issue is the name Yale.; 6/27/20, 8:19 PM
Dave Begley said...: Yale and Brown are next.; 6/27/20, 8:23 PM
rhhardin said...: Separate restrooms for men and women is the bad part.; 6/27/20, 8:26 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: If it were anything but virtue-signaling under pressure of the mob, I could respect it. But it's not.; 6/27/20, 8:30 PM
Ambrose said...: Woodrow - rocco mi bocco out you go! (Old RI expression); 6/27/20, 8:31 PM
gilbar said...: And YET, Elihu Yale's name is All over some other ivy league school
i guess being a slaveowner is OKAY* if you own slaves from the Indian subcontinent instead of ASIA

OKAY* that's RIGHT i'm using the racist symbol okay symbol!; 6/27/20, 8:33 PM
William said...: Woodrow Wilson fucked up more things than the federal civil service. If God were making a list of the things Wilson got wrong, I'm pretty sure Wilson's bigotry would be pretty far down the list....Wilson was not able to arbitrate a settlement among the dueling dining clubs at Princeton, but he, nonetheless, felt competent to draw boundary lines in the Balkans, Central Europe and the Middle East. Versailles was the peace to end all peace, and Wilson was one of the architects....I think it gives short shrift to Wilson's other failings to concentrate solely on his bigotry. I guess that's the only failing that counts for anything nowadays among Democrats, but there are other lenses that give a clearer vision of the man.; 6/27/20, 8:44 PM
Steven said...: And, see, I thought they should take his name off because Wilson was utterly incompetent in matters of international affairs, his great contribution to the field being setting up an inevitable Second World War and his minor being bloody mess-making in Latin America (in particular in Cuba, Haiti, and Mexico).

(In the past people tried to rationalize the first with "Well, if the US had joined the League of Nations like he wanted, maybe the disaster he set up wouldn't have happened". The counterarguments are simple; first, as leader of the US it was his failure that the US didn't join the League of Nations, and second, seventy-five years of failure of the United Nations failing the same way the League did show the problem with such an organization wasn't a lack of US membership.); 6/27/20, 8:56 PM
Narayanan said...: Constitutional self-government
Christopher L. Eisgruber
Most of us regard the Constitution as the foundation of American democracy. How, then, are we to understand the restrictions that it imposes on legislatures and voters? Why, for example, does the Constitution allow unelected judges to exercise so much power? And why is this centuries-old document so difficult to amend? In short, how can we call ourselves a democracy when we are bound by an entrenched, and sometimes counter-majoritarian, constitution?
------------============
so how long did it take for him to figure out Wilson was inflexible counter-majoritarian?; 6/27/20, 9:06 PM
Narayanan said...: All those who say we act as if history began 15 minutes ago .... take that : we can go back 100 years; 6/27/20, 9:10 PM
Narayanan said...: Eponym is a synonym of namesake. Namesake is a synonym of eponym.

As nouns the difference between namesake and eponym is that namesake is one who is named after another or for whom another is named while eponym is the name of a real or fictitious person whose name has, or is thought to have, given rise to the name of a particular item.; 6/27/20, 9:12 PM
Narayanan said...: ... there will have to be ... excision from the history books, Wilson-shaped lacuna in the political record ...
-----------============
will we be better off if we canceled all laws that took effect under his signature?

is that worth hoping for?; 6/27/20, 9:15 PM
Blair said...: As much as I oppose cancel culture and renaming things, I don't care about Wilson, because he was a horrible man and a horrible President. His name shouldn't be on anything.; 6/27/20, 9:16 PM
Narr said...: The Sainted Woodrow, as the great HLM dubbed him. He still triggers people--but all this "he coulda prevented WWII!" is nonsense.

No American president then or now can stop the larger European countries from fighting among themselves if they've a mind to, and to expect it is naive bordering on moronic. And the sooner we unshackle ourselves from the corpse of NATO the better, IMO.

Wilson was a self-righteous, racist, incompetent academic prig, and a Presbyterian, but none of those are grounds for historical cleansing and cultural exorcisms.

Narr
And an idealist, but nobody's perfect; 6/27/20, 9:32 PM
Temujin said...: This is where they begin to devour their own.; 6/27/20, 9:40 PM
Iman said...: Wilson was a priggish racist... as were most of his kind.; 6/27/20, 9:43 PM
tim in vermont said...: Twitter has shadow banned #YaleRacist even though their enormous endowment is built on the slave trade. They even edited Wikipedia to memory hole it.; 6/27/20, 9:53 PM
Jay Vogt said...: Let me get this straight. You're telling me that in the future, we may not benefit as a society from the wisdom and keen generosity bestowed upon us by future graduates fo the Princeton School of Public and International Studies, as we have in the past.

I don't think we can take it.; 6/27/20, 9:57 PM
Narayanan said...: great minds think alike

Investment Guru Peter Schiff : Woodrow Wilson's Take Down Means Repealing Federal Income Tax and Federal Reserve Should Be on the table

great minds think alike; 6/27/20, 10:02 PM
Rob said...: As a Princeton alumnus, I can't wait for the day when the Red Guard put a dunce cap on Eisgruber's head and march him through the streets.; 6/27/20, 10:05 PM
Sebastian said...: YoungHegelian: "Do we get to go through the list of famous people of the 20th C who enabled & did PR for the regimes who murdered millions of their own citizens?"

Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois . . .; 6/27/20, 10:13 PM
Mark said...: So long as the National Cathedral keeps that racist segregationist Wilson's body entombed there in a veritable shrine to him, it is a house of racism and the Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde -- who has repeatedly smeared President Trump -- is herself racist for celebrating him in that way.; 6/27/20, 10:15 PM
Not Sure said...: @Narayan:

Lots of decent dictionaries online. I like American Heritage myself. Maybe you'd like Merriam-Webster.

Totally free.; 6/27/20, 10:24 PM
Greg the class traitor said...: Blogger minnesota farm guy said...
Nonetheless erasing a significant historical presence to assuage a temporary feeling of guilt means that rather than discuss Wilson warts and all we will just dump him into the dust bin of history and learn nothing from the good and bad that he represents. Short sighted and stupid.

Not at all! All the "Progressive" heroes of the teens and 20s were racist scum. The point of "erasing" Wilson is to AVOID having to discuss the vile principles at the core of the "Progressive" movement.

This is especially important since the modern "Progressive" movement is just as racist as the old guys. They hate "white" people rather than "black" people, but their core is still hatred, and they still judge people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.

See: "Identity politics"; 6/27/20, 10:37 PM
wildswan said...: Inside this School of Public Policy is the Office of Population Research (OPR) which formulated and promoted the "Theory of the Demographic Transition," a theory which made population control in the US and abroad a public policy. The OPR was a nest of eugenicists from its Founding Director, Frank Notestein and its Second Director, Ansley Coale, on. Millions upon millions of Americans and others died as a result of the abortions which were used to achieve the goals of the public policies based on the Theory of the Demographic Transition. The demographic structures of countries everywhere became distorted. One reason for the influence of the OPR was that the OPR taught demography and the Theory of the Demographic Transition to students at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy at Princeton. So, rename the School by all means - but until the School wrestles with the legacy of the Theory of the Demographic Transition and of the eugenic theories of the OPR the School isn't really confronting its past. You could break every window and topple every statue and erase every name on the Princeton campus without affecting the legacy of the OPR. It would take real scholarship on what public policy in the area of population control has been and should be and a real look at whether public policy should be continue to be driven by eugenics as disseminated at OPR in order to make a real change.; 6/27/20, 10:37 PM
Birkel said...: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, and Georgetown must go.
Those brand names are garbage.

Fuck Woody Woo.
And his progressive, racist policies too.

Now do Margaret Sanger and her organization.; 6/27/20, 10:46 PM
Birkel said...: Harvard imprisoned 900 slaves.
It is gone.; 6/27/20, 10:49 PM
Yancey Ward said...: To be sincere in this case, Eisgruber needs to change the name of the university itself- Princeton has been associated with Wilson for over 100 years, and the name of the school has to change, too, just for intellectual consistency. The same goes for Yale and all the other schools getting ready to toss their benefactors' legacies over the side of the ship- there needs to be real skin in the game- change the universities' names to wash away the stain. I have suggestions:

Princeton can become Denny University.
Yale can become Bouchet University.
Harvard can become Obama University.; 6/27/20, 10:51 PM
Birkel said...: Princeton was named for a prince of England who was a slave trader.
That college must re-brand.; 6/27/20, 10:51 PM
Readering said...: Preceding Princeton, Yale dropped Calhoun. But Yale and Harvard are not changing their names. Intellectual property too valuable. Would be like changing Ford or Dupont.; 6/27/20, 11:00 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Well, Brown's name problem is an easy fix- Black University.
Columbia could beat Harvard to the punch and declare themselves Obama U., but they also have Neil DeGrasse Tyson to name themselves for.

The University of North Carolina could become Jordan University, Duke could become Zion....er.....skip that one....oh, wait Mangum U. Stanford could become Tiger University. UCLA could become Alcindor...oh, wait.....Jabbar U. And I don't know who Lebron James could sell his name to, but Akron University might be in the running.; 6/27/20, 11:06 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: The reason they devour their own is because they can't devour you. Not yet.; 6/27/20, 11:14 PM
n.n said...: When we do and the excluded list gets combined with all the racists, we're going to be naming buildings after Rin-Tin-Tin because he'll be the only innocent left

It's like an episode of The Outer Limits, where humans are Planned in a pandemic of virtue signaling.; 6/27/20, 11:50 PM
dgstock said...: Well, the Orwellian dictum of “who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past” proceeds apace.; 6/28/20, 12:13 AM
John Marzan said...: Think on Wilson it's hard not to think progressives are pulling down statues and renaming things not to express virtue as much as destroy the evidence.

Not a few will vote left in the belief only the left can control itself. "Only we can make it stop."; 6/28/20, 1:12 AM
0_0 said...: Did Wilson also segregate the military? It was previously integrated, then segregated sometime before WW2.; 6/28/20, 1:50 AM
Tina Trent said...: Wilson was a racist even out of step with his time. This makes him a outlier, I think. His relationship with Dixon, for example.

History-wise, he's already been richly punished. Decades ago, the contents of his personal law office were in this half-assed "museum" exhibit on Marietta St. in a crappy part of downtown Atlanta, so crappy the Atlanta Journal Constitution offices were next door.

It was deserted and fly-specked and I believe I was the only visitor they'd had in months.

The next time I walked by, it had been turned into an equally uninspiring "museum" for black women's fabric arts. Intrigued, not by fabric art, which is silly, I went in and asked the director what had happened to Wilson's law office. She said: that old stuff? I think they threw it away. And she didn't know who he was but was mortified to learn he had been a president. She was very nice, but, fabric art? I told her not to worry about it.

I can't think of a worse fate, historiographically, than being replaced with fabric art.; 6/28/20, 2:49 AM
DEEBEE said...: There is a “there, there” stench to this.

How does one distinguish this from opportunistic virtue signaling. Would have been nice to know what rationales from the past do not make sense anymore and why. We let these people, our presumable betters, off the hook once they recant.; 6/28/20, 5:30 AM
wildswan said...: Inside this School of Public Policy is the Office of Population Research (OPR) which formulated and promoted the "Theory of the Demographic Transition," a theory which made population control in the US and abroad a public policy. The OPR was a nest of eugenicists from its Founding Director, Frank Notestein and its Second Director, Ansley Coale, on. Millions upon millions of Americans and others died as a result of the abortions which were used to achieve the goals of the public policies based on the Theory of the Demographic Transition. The demographic structures of countries everywhere became distorted. One reason for the influence of the OPR was that the OPR taught demography and the Theory of the Demographic Transition to students at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy at Princeton. So, rename the School by all means - but until the School wrestles with the legacy of the Theory of the Demographic Transition and of the eugenic theories of the OPR the School isn't really confronting its past. You could break every window and topple every statue and erase every name on the Princeton campus without affecting the legacy of the OPR. It would take real scholarship on what public policy in the area of population control has been and should be and a real look at whether public policy should be continue to be driven by eugenics as disseminated at OPR in order to make a real change.; 6/28/20, 6:12 AM
JAORE said...: Do these people switch the knee they bend every hour or so or do they suffer silently on just one?; 6/28/20, 6:19 AM
Jeff Brokaw said...: Like anybody notices or cares about the guy’s name on a school of “Public and International Affairs”!

This is one of those episodes that illustrates the gaping chasm between academia and the “real world”. Taking this stand does nothing but remind us of that.; 6/28/20, 8:12 AM
Narr said...: Just out of curiosity, wildswan@612am, how do you define "distorted demographic structures" in countries everywhere?

What is the "true" or "undistorted" demographic structure of a country?

Can you name, say, three countries around the world whose demographies have been distorted by the wonks at OPR and their Theory, and show a clear link between the Theory and the actual practices of the countries you choose? After you define "distortion" of course.

Narr
Much appreciated!; 6/28/20, 8:46 AM
Narr said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/28/20, 8:48 AM
mikee said...: I thought like the statues the entire building has to be razed. Aren't they gonna raze the building? To eliminate the racism, right? Maybe sprinkle some holy water or salt on the razed ground, too, to prevent racism from staying in the soil?

This kind of magical thinking will lead to mass murder if left unchecked.; 6/28/20, 9:20 AM
Bill Peschel said...: Another aspect of the "masks are coming off" is the revelation that the majority of leaders aren't really leaders. They're overpromoted followers.

Tell me again why we should listen to them?; 6/28/20, 9:30 AM
Birkel said...: Fuck readering denying the harm the names Harvard and Yale do to me, a Xerson of Native ancestry.

readering supports slavery!!
And all for the value of a brand.; 6/28/20, 12:58 PM
Greg the class traitor said...: Not a few will vote left in the belief only the left can control itself. "Only we can make it stop."

Only an idiot would do that.

All the destruction is in Cities and ares controlled by the Left. The one thing teh Left can NOT do is control the maniacs.

Only Republicans and Trump can do that; 6/28/20, 4:57 PM
Greg the class traitor said...: Trump is going to spend the Fall talking about all the rioters the Justice Department is prosecuting, and about how Obama didn't prosecute the "New Black Panthers" for their criminal vote suppression.

A vote for Biden is a vote for cities burning; 6/28/20, 5:01 PM
ken in tx said...: The worst thing that Woodrow Wilson did was to have Josephus Daniels do away with the rum ration in the US Navy.; 6/28/20, 8:22 PM
Martin said...: I would rather we not defenestrate our history.

But since we seem to be committed to doing that, I won't shed a tear for Woodrow Wilson, he was a real SOB in many ways, including but not limited to his racism.; 6/29/20, 1:17 AM