Princeton University removes Woodrow Wilson’s name from school

President Woodrow Wilson, who was a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and even screened the movie “Birth of A Nation” at the White House, will have his name removed from Princeton University, the school said Saturday.

“Wilson’s racism was significant and consequential even by the standards of his own time,” University President Christopher L. Eisgruber said in a statement. “(His) segregationist policies make him an especially inappropriate namesake for a public policy school.”

The decision to remove Wilson’s name from the university’s public policy school is a reversal of a decision the school made four years ago to retain his name. The school will now be called “The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.”

The university also removed Wilson's name from a residential college, renaming it "First College."

Wilson presided over the Ivy League school from 1900 to 1910. He was governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913 before serving as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. He espoused racist views and supported segregation.

During his time leading Princeton, he prohibited Black students from attending and spoke approvingly of the KKK. As U.S. president he segregated the federal civil service.

“Wilson remade Princeton, converting it from a sleepy college into a great research university. Many of the virtues that distinguish Princeton today—including its research excellence and its preceptorial system—were in significant part the result of Wilson’s leadership,” Eisgruber said. “Part of our responsibility as a University is to preserve Wilson’s record in all of its considerable complexity. Princeton honored Wilson not because of, but without regard to or perhaps even in ignorance of, his racism.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Cox Media Group