Princeton University’s board voted to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from two of its institutions on Saturday, a decision President Donald Trump called “stupid.”
Princeton decided to change the name of its public policy school and a college because Wilson, a former president, was “a racist who segregated the nation’s civil service after it had been integrated for decades.”
“Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center,” Trump said in a tweet Monday. “Now the Do Nothing Democrats want to take off the name John Wayne from an airport. Incredible stupidity!”
Princeton’s public policy school will now be known as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the college will be known as First College.
In 2016, the university’s Wilson Legacy Review Committee decided to retain Wilson’s name despite student activists vociferously demanding its removal a year earlier. Now, it reconsidered its decision after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks “drew renewed attention to the long and damaging history of racism” in the U.S., said Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber in a statement.
The board said identifying a public policy school by the person it is named after would imply the honoree is a role model.
