A second private university in New Jersey has announced that it will continue to honor Woodrow Wilson by keeping Wilson’s name emblazoned on the main administration building.
The school, Monmouth University, made the announcement to keep “Woodrow Wilson Hall” on Friday.
In retaining the name of America’s 28th president — a model progressive, a Democrat and a world-class racist scumbag — school officials admitted that Wilson definitely possessed a mixed bag of qualities.
“The decision comes after months of discussion, examination, and collection of feedback from faculty, students, and alumni, on the cusp of the 100th anniversary of Wilson’s residence in West Long Branch in the summer of 1916,” Monmouth officials said in a press release.
Wilson, who graduated from Princeton University and served as its president before becoming president of the United States, is commonly considered a pivotal figure in the rise of progressivism. During his administration, the Federal Reserve was created, antitrust laws were strengthened and the power of the American central government was increased substantially.
On the international stage, Wilson was an idealist who led America into World War I and founded the League of Nations, a failed precursor to the United Nations. Just like President Barack Obama, Wilson was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. (RELATED: Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Obama Has Been At War LONGER THAN ANY OTHER U.S. President)
But Wilson was also a southerner who shared the racial views of many other progressives in the early 20th century. He supported segregation and greatly increased its use in the federal government which has muddled his legacy for modern-day progressives.
The Democrat was such a racist that AlterNet, the activist-progressive news outlet, labeled him as America’s most racist modern president.
When Wilson was the president of Princeton, he steadfastly claimed that no black person had ever applied or would ever apply to the Ivy League school (which now boasts a college named for him).
“The whole temper and tradition of the place are such that no Negro has ever applied for admission, and it seems unlikely that the question will ever assume practical form,” the man who would become president in 1913 said.
Wilson was an enthusiastic advocate of Jim Crow laws in the South. He prevented black Americans from fighting in World War I. He signed a law against interracial marriage. He also ordered all federal offices to be totally segregated, notes PBS, telling critics: “The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest.”
In a book entitled “A History of the American People,” Wilson sympathized with the Ku Klux Klan, calmly arguing that Klansmen “began to attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the ballot or by any ordered course of public action.”
In keeping the Wilson name, Monmouth officials followed the lead of officials at Princeton — another private school in New Jersey — which boasts the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs as well as a dorm named after him.
“I am proud that our entire Board chose to proactively examine Wilson’s legacy with the help of faculty, students, and staff members,” said Monmouth University board chairman Henry Mercer said in the school’s press release. “From this we know that we have a responsibility to tell Wilson’s full story — the good and bad. This provides a valuable learning opportunity for the Monmouth University community.”
“Studying history allows you to learn from past mistakes and do better,” Mercer added.
In November, Black Lives Matter activists at Princeton took over the school president’s office and swore they wouldn’t leave until the school acknowledged former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson as a racist and renamed all buildings currently honoring him on campus.
That effort failed massively. In April, Princeton University’s board of directors denied a push by protesters to purge the legacy of Wilson from campus, voting to have the former president’s name remain on various campus facilities. (RELATED: Princeton Defies Protesters, Will Keep Woodrow Wilson)
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