Co-author John Rury, Professor of Education and History (by courtesy) at the University of Kansas
Student protestors at Princeton want Woodrow Wilson's head to roll, and apparently the New York Times agrees, calling him "an unapologetic racist." Students elsewhere have garnered national attention calling for changes on campuses. At Princeton they demand that the university change the name of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs because Wilson segregated the federal civil service and demoted or dismissed African American officials. But is this the best way to deal with such an egregious legacy?
Wilson is hardly the only figure to become a source of controversy. At Yale it's John C. Calhoun, and at the University of Texas it's Jefferson Davis. Others may yet become candidates for vilification. After all, Andrew Jackson paved the Trail of Tears, Teddy Roosevelt castigated women's education, and FDR interned Japanese Americans. The logic of protestor demands would lead to changing names attached to institutions, buildings, and monuments across the country. Why not remove slave-owners Thomas Jefferson and George Washington from U.S. currency while we are at it? Where does it all end?
With all of his flaws, Wilson is a part of our past and so are the others. We cannot erase our history and its legacy. The grave cost of going down this road is forgetting the sins of the past that light the way to a better future on and off campus. Hanging onto our history--the good, the bad, and the racist--is a vital source of wisdom about where we have come from, what we have been through, and how we can improve upon the record of institutions that decided to honor historical figures such as these.
Instead of removing names from schools, residence halls, and monuments we should "flip" them by devoting the resources, spaces, and cultural significance they represent to address the enduring problems associated with the historical legacies of their namesakes. At Princeton, this could mean making the Wilson School a center for scholarship on inequality and discrimination, at Yale it might take the form of a center for student activism around issues of climate and diversity within the Calhoun residential College. At Texas it may mean placing a plaque featuring a critical historical account of slavery and the Civil War alongside the Davis monument. There are countless other possibilities for flipping these legacies, and using them for insight about the past and inspiration for a better present and future.
We are far from perfect as individuals and as a nation. Using standards we can scarcely imagine today, future generations will doubtless judge us by the names we honor today. In these trying times the rush to expunge the past should not be taken lightly.