Reassessing historical campus figures

On Nov.18, members of the Black Justice League at Princeton University occupied the office of the university’s president as part of a wave of college protests against racism last month. Among other items, the group demanded that Woodrow Wilson’s name be removed from memorials on campus, including from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs. These demands come on the heels of a nationwide push to rectify and appropriately reassess the legacy of historical American figures and how they have been honored with namings on college campuses throughout the country. Although the deliberations about racial and other negative aspects of institutional histories are important especially given current campus climates, it is vital that we exercise caution in moving to strip the entirety of any figure’s efforts from being recognized.

This push to rename buildings on college campuses is nothing new; we can draw parallels to the Princeton case with similar efforts at Duke and other schools. Last year the Board of Trustees renamed Aycock dormitory on East Campus after student leaders pointed out that former North Carolina governor, Charles Brantley Aycock, who had no clear ties to Trinity College as a student, professor or donor, was a prominent leader in the white supremacy movement in the early 1900s. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Board of Trustees voted to rename Saunders Hall, named after a former North Carolina Secretary of State, to Carolina Hall because the building was dedicated to Saunders in 1920 for his role as head of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. At Amherst, the vast majority of students favor removing Lord Jeff, after Lord Jeffrey Amherst, as the school’s mascot for his support of killing Native Americans with smallpox-infected blankets, yet support for renaming the whole university is unsurprisingly less strong.

Despite the genuine concerns raised by student activists, we still caution this momentum in the politics of memorialization on college campuses. It is imperative to consider both the achievements and failures of these prominent figures in their historical contexts. Some failures are more egregious than others, and some achievements are more integral to the university's founding and therefore warrant recognition. While questioning John C. Calhoun’s name at Yale is more sensible given his racism, which was exceptional even in the 1800s, it is harder to believe that Woodrow Wilson’s mark on Princeton, the United States and world events are equally troubled by his views from antebellum Virginia. Still, revisiting the legacy of figures often only celebrated for their accomplishments is not only still a worthwhile exercise but should be encouraged so as to not pretend universities and other institutions are ready-made.

Starting with a witch hunt through the dedication history books should perhaps be the replaced by a search for changes motivated by honoring the accomplishments of those who often go unrecognized and who were on the right side of history. Bringing these discussions back to Duke’s campus, we strongly urge the Board of Trustees to consider naming the West Union or a building of similar stature after architect Julian Abele, whose influence is immortalized in the many of Duke's iconic buildings including Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Allen Building and of course the Chapel itself.