Apr 4, 2016 3 min read

Woodrow Wilson will not be banished from Princeton University.

After facing demands by some students late last year that Wilson’s name and image be removed from programs and buildings at the Ivy League institution because of racist views he held, the university’s board of trustees announced Monday that the 28th president of the United States and 13th president of Princeton will remain a presence there. At the same time, the board asserted that steps will be taken to put Wilson and his legacy in the proper historical context and efforts to make the New Jersey campus more diverse and inclusive would be intensified.

The Princeton board struck exactly the right note in this dispute.

Yes, Wilson espoused racist views in his public life, views that we now look on as hopelessly bigoted and backward – he segregated the federal workforce, sang the praises of D.W. Griffith’s nakedly white-supremacist movie epic “The Birth of a Nation” and did not believe that African-Americans should be granted full citizenship. These are obvious stains on his legacy.

But Wilson also appointed Louis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first member of the Jewish faith to reach the nation’s highest court; fought for the right of women to vote; and was an avid campaigner for the League of Nations, a United Nations forerunner.

The committee considering whether to strip Wilson’s name and image from Princeton noted that “There is considerable consensus that Wilson was a transformative and visionary figure in the area of public and international affairs…” and that “contextualization is imperative” when approaching Wilson. Moreover, “Wilson, like other historical figures, leaves behind a complex legacy of both positive and negative repercussions, and that the use of his name implies no endorsement of views and actions that conflict with the values and aspirations of our times.”

Had Wilson’s name and likeness been erased from Princeton, it would have been a triumph for the hypersensitive souls who try to enforce political correctness on many college and university campuses. These students, and some of their professors, wallow in narratives of perpetual victimhood, constantly on the lookout for “microaggessions” that could be lurking around every corner – it will come as a shock to many that opening a door for another person could indeed be construed as a “microaggression.” They also insist that “safe spaces” be established for students who want to be cushioned from viewpoints or concepts that might upset their delicate psyches. It’s supremely silly, an absurd fad that will almost certainly run its course in a couple of years.

Remember the students at Oberlin College in Ohio who, a few months back, argued that serving General Tso’s chicken in the dining hall with steamed rather than fried poultry was an offensive act of cultural appropriation?

We can only hope that one day they will look back on their distress over the college’s menu with the same embarrassment that other people have when they recall their fraternity or sorority hijinks.

In the meantime, close to a century after he departed from this life, the debate over Wilson’s legacy will go on at Princeton and elsewhere.