Princeton University recently announced it would be removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs and renaming the Woodrow Wilson residential college to First College. The board released a statement explaining its decision: “We have taken this extraordinary step because we believe that Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars, students, and alumni must be firmly committed to combating the scourge of racism in all its forms.”
It needs to be pointed out that Wilson was a racist and that his policies, especially segregating the civil service in Washington, D.C., were wrong.
Yet as with any historical figure, Wilson’s life should be examined in its proper context. His critics are engaging in “presentism,” by which past actors and events are judged by contemporary mores. Unfortunately, most white Americans in Wilson’s times thought as he did. The erasure of Wilson’s name from history does nothing to explain his legacy.
Wilson left the presidency in 1921, and for a century, historians have consistently ranked him as one of the country’s better presidents. A 2017 C-SPAN poll rated him as the 11th-best chief executive. Ironically, given that his critics are on the Left, Wilson was a progressive Democrat who instituted a host of liberal reforms during his presidency. He signed the first income tax bill into law, supported anti-trust legislation, and (eventually) endorsed female suffrage. A committed internationalist, he led the country during World War I, was feted as a hero by the Allies, and in 1919 won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Instead of having an honest discussion about Wilson and assessing his entire career, Princeton capitulated to an outrage mob that isn’t interested in understanding the past, only in pushing its own narrative. And that mob can never be satiated.
All over the country, statues are being torn down and defaced, buildings renamed, monuments destroyed. History is not being rewritten as much as it is being eliminated. What began as an important discussion over whether Confederate leaders should be honored with monuments has descended into a mass hysteria, whereby every figure is now under assault. And it’s not going to stop as long as every institution in this country keeps giving in to the iconoclasts like Princeton did.
What conservatives need to understand is that the removal of names from buildings and the tearing down of statues is part of a cultural civil war being led by militant radicals who believe that America is fundamentally evil. Conservatives can fight back by defending America and its heritage, or they can sit idly by while the mob erases America’s past. The choice is clear.
Dr. Justin P. Coffey is a professor of history at Quincy University.
