A push to remove Woodrow Wilson from the name of one of the top public schools in Washington is gaining traction.
Woodrow Wilson High School, in Northwest Washington, is named after the nation’s 28th president, a Southern Democrat who supported segregation.
The school is one of the most diverse in the city, with 34 percent of the student body identifying as white, 32 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic, 7 percent Asian, and 1 percent Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
Supporters of a name change told the Washington Post that the school should honor the neighborhood’s black history, not a person whose policies helped segregate the federal workforce and made it harder for black residents in the District to get government jobs.
The federal government used eminent domain after Woodrow left office to acquire land in the neighborhoods surrounding the high school. The move pushed many of the black communities out of the area.
The wealthy neighborhood where the school resides is now predominately white.
“We want to educate our neighbors about what has happened in these neighborhoods,” said Tim Hannapel, a 1977 Wilson high school graduate and one of the founders of the D.C. History and Justice Collective, a group advocating for the name change. “About what happened to these black communities.”
The Wilson High School Diversity Task Force hosted a discussion last month on the historical context of the school’s name.
A name change would need approval from the mayor and city council.
Wilson high school social studies teacher Michele Bollinger said “there has always been a vocal crew” of students who have been critical of their school’s name.
“They see naming the school ‘Wilson’ as emblematic of the discrimination in school and in their broader communities,” she said.
John Milton Cooper, a 1957 graduate of the school and a biographer of the president, said Wilson should not only be remembered for his actions relating to race.
“The good outweighs the bad with Wilson,” Cooper said. The name “Woodrow Wilson — both the man and the school — is synonymous with academic excellence.”
