Geoffrey Stone: Woodrow Wilson, Princeton University, and the Battles We Choose to Fight
Woodrow Wilson, Princeton University, and the Battles We Choose to Fight
As part of their recent thirty-two hour sit-in outside the office of Princeton University's president Chris Eisgruber, members of one of Princeton's student organizations, the Black Justice League, demanded that Eisgruber remove all images of Woodrow Wilson from all of Princeton's public spaces and erase Wilson's name from Princeton's internationally acclaimed Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Eisgruber, who I'm proud to say was one of my students several decades ago at the University of Chicago Law School, is mulling it over.
For more than a century, Princeton has had a special place in its heart for Woodrow Wilson. In part, this was because Wilson served as president of the university from 1902 to 1910. During his presidency of Princeton, Wilson renewed and reinvigorated the institution. In only eight years, he increased the size of the faculty from 112 to 174, paying special attention to both teaching and scholarly excellence.
Wilson also made progressive innovations in the curriculum, raised admissions standards to move Princeton away from its historic image as an institution dedicated only to students from the upper crust, and took strides to invigorate the university's intellectual life by replacing the traditional norm of the "gentleman's C" with a course of serious and rigorous study. As Wilson told alumni, his goal was "to transform thoughtless boys . . . into thinking men."
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