April 4, 2016

Despite student protests, the Princeton board of trustees has voted to keep the name Woodrow Wilson on its various buildings and programs.

Wilson has been a much-loved figure at Princeton, but in September, the Black Justice League, a student activist group, distributed posters around campus that revealed his views on race, including his comment to an African-American leader that, “Segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”

As president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson reintroduced segregation into the federal work force, admired the Ku Klux Klan and did not believe that black Americans were worthy of full citizenship.
The board also rejected a demand that faculty and staff submit to cultural competency training and that students take a course on the history of a marginalized people. The demand for a place on campus dedicated to black students was, ironically, met.

64 comments:

The BubFather said...

Perhaps when Oxford decided to keep the Rhodes statue and send a nice letter, other universities have found their backbones as well.

Brando said...

Yeah, but don't think for a minute these overgrown children will see the irony.

"How dare you segregate us! We will segregate ourselves!"

The far left rears its ugly head once again. Take all public funding out of schools like this--if they wish to go down the drain, let them do it on their own dime.

PB said...

Racism and hate. Core Democrat values.

Michael K said...

"students take a course on the history of a marginalized people."

A few courses in History would be helpful.

The black student place can just be added to the tuition.

Michael said...

Why is that ironic? They accepted the "demand" that made some sense and rejected rejected those that did not. Not that I'm any fan of Woodrow Wilson.

gspencer said...

"As president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson reintroduced segregation into the federal work force, admired the Ku Klux Klan and did not believe that black Americans were worthy of full citizenship."

And was a member in very good standing in the DEMOCRAT Party, the same party that brought into being the KKK and the Jim Crow Laws.

I Callahan said...

The demand for a place on campus dedicated to black students was, ironically, met.

I see what you did there!!

I Callahan said...

They accepted the "demand" that made some sense and rejected rejected those that did not.

Is your irony meter broken? They asked to take Woodrow Wilson's name down because he was a segregationist. Yet they choose to segregate themselves, and segregate white people outside of their group.

NONE of the demands made any sense.

Sal said...

The demand for a place on campus dedicated to black students was, ironically, met.

The are simultaneous efforts at racial integration and segregation. All of the races except blacks are encouraged to integrate, while blacks are encouraged to segregate. How is that going to turn out?

MadisonMan said...

Yes, his irony meter is broken.

Or he uses irony like Pig does : That nail is very irony.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

A compromise would have been for the Princeton mascot to run around a tree until he turned to melted butter.

YoungHegelian said...

Oh, just wait until these student protesters look into the part black African slave traders & the coastal kingdoms played in the slave trade.

It's gonna be tough to be from Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire, let me tell ya, buddy!

Van Wallach said...

As a Princeton alum, I'm surprised the board did not respond positively to my suggestion to rename WWS the Donald Rumsfeld '54 School of Public and International Affairs. That would surely gain universal acclaim. There's still hope for Wilson College to become Brooke Shields '87 College.

William said...

It's important to remember that Wodrow Wilson's quest for world domination was aided and abetted by W.E. Dubois. That civil rights leader was militant in his support for Wilson in the 1912 election. Perhaps that man's name and reputation also deserves to be sandblasted into oblivion.

Hagar said...

I have a problem with the word "re-introduced."
In the past there may have been very few black Federal officials, and those few may have been non-persons to the recorders of history, but I do not think there ever was any formal race based restrictions prior to President Wilson's executive orders.
So I think the proper word is just "introduced."

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Black Justice League? They're never going to get anywhere with that name! Sounds like a 1970's DC Comic that lasted 5 issues.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Segregation and whitewashing crimes of democrat party members- Progressive- Same As It Ever Was!

Bay Area Guy said...

Wilson, a Democrat, was a horrible President and horrible man. The first "College Professor" President -- no real world experience, lotta utopian ideas.

And, he lied his way into World War I -- an epic catastrophe for Europe -- that proximately caused WWII, which proximately caused the Cold War.

But, yes, I would reject these silly demands by these young left-wing Princeton idiots and sentence them to read a book every once in a while. William Manchester's biographical trilogy of Churchill -- The Last Lion -- would be a good place to start.

SteveR said...

Sen Robert Byrd was unavailable for comment.

MadisonMan said...

Irony in the comics.

Mark Caplan said...

I doubt that the trustees will have the final say. With Woodrow Wilson's despicable, worse-than-Hitler name still defacing some of Princeton's buildings and programs, EEOC could very well sue Princeton for creating a hostile work environment for folks of color.

Ambrose said...

Odd word choice: "posters around campus that revealed his views on race"

"Revealed" makes it sound like Wilson's racial views were not widely known until this recent event - so that good liberals can say - I had no idea!

William said...

I wonder why there are no introspective black intellectuals who wonder how it came to pass that the souls of black folks came into the possession of the party that was so vehemently pro slavery and pro segregation. Irony isn't the word I'm looking for here.

Anonymous said...

Make them all watch Morgan Freeman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh8mUia75k8

Michael K said...

" just wait until these student protesters look into the part black African slave traders "

They won't. Not a chance.

mezzrow said...

Amazing what hides in plain sight, isn't it?

DavidD said...

Democrat.

mccullough said...

Time for students who feel aggrieved at this to leave Princeton in protest. Cornell West will be resign in protest in 20 years.

Virgil Hilts said...

Do the following Google image search "ku klux klan march in d.c." This was in 28 -- just 7 years after Wilson. Many (most) of you will have seen these, but I only saw them a few years ago and was shocked. Wilson was a big force behind the klan's rise; its membership peaked just 4 years after he left office.

Anonymous said...

Black Superman?

Yes, Black Flash?

Black Wonder Woman is pissed. You left the black toilet seat up. Again.

JPS said...

William, 11:08:

Well, it works more or less as follows:

- Democrats were the party of segregation!

- Yes, but those were conservative Democrats. They and their heirs are all Republicans now. There used to be liberal Republicans, that's how they used to have a decent civil rights record.

- What about Woodrow Wilson, progressive hero?

- Well, on that one issue he was conservative.

Sort of akin to No True Scotsman.

effinayright said...

@Hagar:

http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2015/11/when-woodrow-wilson-segregated-federal-workforce/123913/


"William Keylor, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, describes the atmosphere in government when Wilson took office in 1913:

Washington was a rigidly segregated town--except for federal government agencies. They had been integrated during the post-war Reconstruction period, enabling African Americans to obtain federal jobs and work side by side with whites in government agencies. Wilson promptly authorized members of his cabinet to reverse this long-standing policy of racial integration in the federal civil service."

And:

"Even as the strictures of Jim Crow segregation began to harden in the South, Washington, and the federal Civil Service, offered African-Americans real opportunity for employment and advancement. Thousands passed the civil-service exam to gain coveted spots in government agencies and departments. In 1882, soon after graduating from high school, the young [black] John Davis secured a job at the Government Printing Office.

Over a long career, he rose through the ranks from laborer to a position in midlevel management. He supervised an office in which many of his employees were white men. He had a farm in Virginia and a home in Washington. By 1908, he was earning the considerable salary — for an African-American — of $1,400 per year.

But only months after Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as president in 1913, my grandfather was demoted. He was shuttled from department to department in various menial jobs, and eventually became a messenger in the War Department, where he made only $720 a year."

http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2015/11/more-woodrow-wilsons-legacy-segregating-civil-service/123971/

QED

n.n said...

Liberalism is variable or selective.

Progress is unqualified, monotonic change.

Class diversity is a prejudice that denies individual dignity.

Pro-choice is a religion instructed by gods from the twilight zone that is internally, externally, and mutually inconsistent.

Individual dignity. Intrinsic value. Natural imperatives. Go forth and reconcile.

Bruce Hayden said...

- Yes, but those were conservative Democrats. They and their heirs are all Republicans now. There used to be liberal Republicans, that's how they used to have a decent civil rights record.

Keep dreaming. The Republican party has always been, and continues to be, the color blind party.

The interesting thing is the difference between how the Republicans and the Democrats handle segregationists. The Republicans fired their Senate leader (Trent Lott) for lauding an old segregationist at his funeral. Most of the most prominent Democrats in Congress and in politics lauded a former Klan Grand Kleagle (Bob "Sheets" Byrd) at his funeral. All within the last decade or two. The Republican party was founded on opposition to slavery, and has long been quick to expel segregationists. The Democratic party was founded by slave owners, went to war to keep the institution (while your progressive Northern Democrats continued to support their southern brethren and opposed the war), opposed Reconstruction, imposed Jim Crow, founded the KKK, hung a number of Blacks, and provided most of the opposition to the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s in Congress.

Bay Area Guy said...

@JPS

Yes, but those were conservative Democrats. They and their heirs are all Republicans now. There used to be liberal Republicans, that's how they used to have a decent civil rights record.

That's one interpretation.

Here's a better one:

1. Democrats were the party of Slavery.
2. Democrats were the party of Jim Crowe
3. FDR Democrats allied themselves with Southern Jim Crowe Democrats to win Presidential elections from 1932- 1948.

As the South moved away from its racist roots, and became more tolerant, it moved away from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party.

Bruce Hayden said...

Interesting to me, I went to work for the Bureau of the Census in the mid 1970s (at its headquarters in Suitland, MD) as a computer programmer. One of our supervisors was a Black woman who had started work there while it was still segregated. Thanks to her, we knew which were the formerly white restrooms, and the formerly colored ones. Couldn't really tell the difference though - they all looked alike by the time I got there. And, she recounted other stories from the agency's segregationist past. I think that it bothered all of us that this wasn't ancient history there, but was, rather, somewhat recent.

Sam L. said...

And now black students want (some INSISTING) on segregation.

Gahrie said...

The Republican party was founded on opposition to slavery, and has long been quick to expel segregationists. The Democratic party was founded by slave owners

Don't forget the Trail of Tears and the Japanese internment

MaxedOutMama said...

Clearly this is Trump's fault.

Gahrie said...


I wonder why there are no introspective black intellectuals who wonder how it came to pass that the souls of black folks came into the possession of the party that was so vehemently pro slavery and pro segregation.


Because everyone knows, but must never say, that the answer is the Democratic Party became the party of free stuff. The change began under FDR and was cemented under LBJ. Today Democratic politicians openly say if you vote for me, I'll give you more free stuff.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I'm going to refuse to work out at the Princeton Club because of this, or anywhere else, as I have done as long as I have known of Wilson's existence.

William said...

Although Wilson has come into some flack for re-instituting the segregation of public facilities in Washington DC , Eisenhower has not received any counter balance of praise for abolishing that segregation. Also, note that while Truman signed an order eliminating segregation in the armed forces, Eisenhower was the president who made that desegregation order happen in the real world..........Perhaps this dispute can be amicably resolved by renaming all these public buildings after Dwight Eisenhower........Similar protests are bound to occur around Fulbright and the Fulbright scholarships. This beloved mentor of Bill Clinton was as fervent in his opposition to civil rights as he was in his opposition to the Vietnam War. I think we should rename Fulbright Scholarships into Nixon Scholarships in order to honor that president who did so much to bring integration into unions.

JPS said...

Bruce Hayden, 12:11; Bay Area Guy, 12:14 -

Thank you both for your fine points. It may not have been clear that I was mocking, by way of riffing on William's good question, an argument I consider hack-ish, simplistic and misleading. So in the liberal narrative all the segregationist Democrats became Republicans (never mind the many, many who didn't); and conservative Democrats who were staunchly anti-racist and later became Republicans (I give you Charlton Heston) are defined as a liberals on that issue.

See also the modern-day phenomenon where grotesque racism by any dyed-in-the-wool liberal in academia or Hollywood is greeted by their colleagues as proof that "we're not as liberal as we like to think." Oh yes, yes you are.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

First they came for... progressed to cannibalism.

People appreciate the implications. They are looking for a Patton.

I imagine that this is a reason for Trump's popularity.

Bay Area Guy said...

Well said, JPS!

The other historical tidbit that is very important:

In 1964, the deep South voted for Goldwater. (See the GOP is racist!)

In 1968, the deep South voted for Wallace (See the South is still racist!)

In 1972, the deep South voted for Nixon (See the GOP is really, really racist!)

In 1976, the deep South for Carter (See, the Dems are expanding their base!)

The primary modern day political tactic of the Left is to call their opponent "Racist" and then ignore the debate. That's what they are doing to Trump. I'm not a huge fan of Trump, but I hate these leftwing tactics.

Michael said...

Bay Area Guy

The tactic has worked for years. Republicans seem to think that they are not speaking to waves of new voters every election cycle and thus could begin to employ and thus defang the same technique. Every Republican at the get-go should call their opponent racists and keep it up. Fair is a place in the country with cotton candy.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Michael

Every Republican at the get-go should call their opponent racists and keep it up. Fair is a place in the country with cotton candy.

Sadly, you are right. Gutter politics has worked for the Left, so it may be past time to call Democrats racists earlier and more often.

I'd prefer more civilized debate, but some times the gloves have to come off.

How many Democratic Senators filisbustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Enquiring minds want to know.

Michael said...

Bay Area Guy

One more thing. Opponents should always be called members of the "extreme left." Or "extreme left wingers" This rhetorical flourish needs to be employed to counter the oft used opposite which can be seen daily in any European paper.

Fen said...

This is the stupidity of studying past cultures according to current values. Culture EVOLVES. You might as well damn the founding fathers because they didn't write Animal Rights into the Constitution. Why, I hear Jefferson even hooked horses up to wagons!

Jason said...

If Democrats were serious about reducing economic inequality in the United States, they would raze all the Ivy League colleges to the ground, bulldoze the rubble and salt and pave the Earth so that nothing would ever grow there again.

Fen said...

Imagine in 100 years all the statues of prominent Feminists being torn down because someone discovered they supported killing unborn persons.

It will be the same evolution of values

In the 1700s we defined Native Americans as savages to justify stealing their land and exterminating them. Now we know better, Custer's Memorial is quietly moved to the back.

In the 1800s we defined Africans as subhuman to justify making them slaves. It was the conventional wisdom then, just like abortion is today. But the Confederate Flag is hereby banned.

Today, we define the fetus as subhuman. Its not hard to follow the trend - abortion will become unnecessary (technology) and will become regarded as a monstrosity. Should those who supported it have their statues torn down and their books burned?

Then again, I don't really expect us to make it another 100 years. The future belongs to Islam and the West is too immoral and corrupt to defend itself.

Sebastian said...

Yeah, but when are they gonna take the prince out of Princeton?

Anonymous said...

Fen: Then again, I don't really expect us to make it another 100 years. The future belongs to Islam and the West is too immoral and corrupt to defend itself.

Islam is still immoral and corrupt by the standards you outlined. (Slavery, defining outgroups so as to exclude them from the same moral consideration as in-group members, etc.). But it will, unlike the West, fight for itself.

Immoral people can have plenty of fighting spirit (the West had it in spades when it was more immoral, by modern lights), and the corruption of the spirit that afflicts the West is different from ordinary self-seeking corruption.

traditionalguy said...

Interestingly Wilson and other racists wanted to be in charge of racist segregation with blacks obeying them.

Then MLK came in and ask for non racist thought and a temporary affirmative action to get things unsegregated in practice.

Now we are back to the blacks wanting to be in charge of racist segregation with whites obeying them.

The old white guilt ain't what she used to be.

Static Ping said...

If Democrats were serious about reducing economic inequality in the United States, they would raze all the Ivy League colleges to the ground, bulldoze the rubble and salt and pave the Earth so that nothing would ever grow there again.

Hey now, there is no need to go to that extreme. The reason to salt the earth in ancient times was to prevent agriculture which prevented a settlement. That was the point of salting Carthage: it would never be rebuilt. (It appears that Carthage was not salted as it would be a major agricultural center in the Roman Empire and the city was rebuilt as the second city in the West.) Princeton is in New Jersey. New Jersey is the Garden State. We'll grow tomatoes or Christmas trees or something. (More likely we will build a series of McMansions with easy rail access to NYC and Philadelphia. Then Bruce Springsteen will sing a song about it.)

wildswan said...

The final argument made by segregationists in the Sixties was that black children felt uncomfortable around white children and would have better learning experience in a socially homogenous (i.e., segregated) environment. see Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education, 220 F. Supp. 667 (S.D. Ga. 1963)

Jupiter said...

“You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”

That would be the racist Republican President whose pensive visage peers down from the Lincoln Memorial. I am afraid, in fact, that inasmuch as slavery was a universally accepted institution prior to the middle of the 18th Century, pretty much everyone you ever heard of will have to be crammed down the memory hole. Or maybe we should just admit that he was right.

Roadkill711 said...

To hell with Wilson, and the 4 progressive amendments he marshalled though congress. And to think that we've only been able to repeal the least onerous one.

Chuck said...

"Black Justice League" = Superfly, The Mack, Shaft, Hammer, Slaughter, Trouble Man, Black Caesar, Coffy and Willie Dynamite.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Fen said..."In the 1700s we defined Native Americans as savages to justify stealing their land and exterminating them."
4/4/16, 3:07 PM

I read somewhere that explorers and early settlers called the Indians savages because they still lived in the stone-age. Romans called the Irish savages for the same reason.

Anonymous said...

Michael Fitzgerald: Fen said..."In the 1700s we defined Native Americans as savages to justify stealing their land and exterminating them."

I read somewhere that explorers and early settlers called the Indians savages because they still lived in the stone-age. Romans called the Irish savages for the same reason.


Yes, higher-tech people don't kill lower-tech people and take their land because they "otherized" the latter. Higher-tech people kill lower-tech people and take their land because they want the land and have the means to take it. Justifications are second-order embroidery.

We're not more moral than our ancestors.


Jupiter: I am afraid, in fact, that inasmuch as slavery was a universally accepted institution prior to the middle of the 18th Century, pretty much everyone you ever heard of will have to be crammed down the memory hole.

No, not everyone, because it's not about the slavery. It's about cramming your enemy's history down the memory hole.

Jupiter said...

nglelyne said...

"Yes, higher-tech people don't kill lower-tech people and take their land because they "otherized" the latter. Higher-tech people kill lower-tech people and take their land because they want the land and have the means to take it. Justifications are second-order embroidery."

Biologists say that when organisms compete for territory, the more efficient one wins. "Efficiency" being defined as the ability to increase population by using the resources of the territory.

mikee said...

The future does not belong to Islam, it belongs to the Chinese, who are using a slow, soft approach to imperial status to avoid being stopped. The Chinese, perhaps the most racist and xenophobic people on earth, have used genocide multiple times in their recent history, and will likely do so again.

One can only hope that their rate of imperialistic actions is slow enough to avoid, via societal evolution, the worst excesses of which their totalitarian state will be capable.