COLLEGE NEWS

Removing a racist legacy at Monmouth University?

Should Monmouth University remove Woodrow Wilson's name from their campus building? Take our poll at the end of the story.

Amanda Oglesby
@OglesbyAPP
Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. Interior photo of Wilson Hall. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

WEST LONG BRANCH — It's a time of reckoning for Woodrow Wilson at Monmouth University.

The campus is in the throes of a kind of introspection now spreading across the nation, considering whether the former president's name should be stricken from the iconic Wilson Hall. Some call it a "necessary" conversation while others regard it as "political correctness" run amok.

The mansion bears the touches of the 20th century's greatest artists, but some here worry that Wilson's racist legacy — he was a white supremacist who erased even the modest gains made by blacks of his era — is a stain that detracts from the building's beauty and the school's aim of inclusion.

EDITORIAL: Process flawed in putting Tubman on $20 bill

The former president and New Jersey governor joins a growing list of departed luminaries — and enduring symbols as well — facing fresh scrutiny for forgotten or overlooked history, much of it tied to the nation's earliest struggles over race.

A bust of Woodrow Wilson stands in the interior of the building that bares his name. Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

Even where the status quo has been preserved — Yale announced Wednesday it would continue to honor slavery champion and 19th century U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun — the inquiries have changed the way leading figures, flags, monuments, buildings — even the money in people's pockets — are understood.

"The national dialog that’s going on on our campuses about race and about inclusion is very important," said Monmouth University President Paul R. Brown, who has been holding local campus discussions on the topics since 2015.

Campus officials formed a committee to gather input using surveys of staff, students and alumni about the possibility of changing the name of Wilson Hall. So far, Brown said, there is no consensus in the illuminating conversation.

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Wilson's ties to the school are tenuous. The 87-year-old mansion honors Wilson because, among other reasons, he once campaigned on the grounds, but this was long before Monmouth University, then Monmouth College, acquired the site in 1956.

Wilson's legacy includes spearheading the creation of the Federal Reserve and the League of Nations after World War I, the forerunner to the United Nations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1919, for his effort to preserve peace after the slaughter of World War I.

The first Southerner to be elected president since 1848, Wilson also re-instituted segregation by race in workplaces, bathrooms, cafeterias and other federal government offices — at a time when blacks had previously found job opportunities there.

Monmouth University Ambassador Arianna Gordon, Smithtown, NY, is interviewed outside Wilson Hall on the campus Tuesday, April 19, 2016.  The University is considering renaming the building because of President Woodrow Wilson's racist past.

"Born in Virginia and raised in Georgia and South Carolina, Wilson was a loyal son of the old South who regretted the outcome of the Civil War," Boston University professor and author William Keylor wrote on the 100th anniversary of Wilson's 1913 inaugural. "He used his high office to reverse some of its consequences."

He also believed blacks were unworthy of full citizenship and regarded the Klu Klux Klan as a benevolent organization.

Yet Wilson helped limit working hours for railroad laborers to eight hours and supported a ban on child labor.

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"I do think that it's an important discussion, especially with what's going on in our society today with all this controversy," said Arianna Gordon, president of Monmouth University's African-American Student Union. "It may be something that we do need to talk about and possibly do change, not necessarily to ignore or forget history or what President Woodrow Wilson did, but maybe to move forward, which I think is the goal – to progress."

Exterior of Woodrow Hall. Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

Wilson's racist history spurred protests last year at Princeton University, where students held a 32-hour long sit-in and demanded the university president consider renaming a college and Princeton's school of public and international affairs that bear Wilson's name. Wilson served as Princeton's president from 1902 to 1910, before winning New Jersey's gubernatorial race. His administration at Princeton accepted no black students during his time leading the university, despite the fact that black students had attended Harvard and Yale in prior decades. (A handful of blacks studied at the school as early as the late 1770s, but it wasn't until the mid-1950s that Princeton sought a diverse student body.) 

Princeton University decided in early April not to remove Wilson's name from the schools. Quoted in the New York Times, Brent Henry, chairman of the review committee and vice chairman of the board of trustees, said that "at the end of the day, what we learned was that Wilson was a complicated and flawed individual." He added, "when you look at the pluses and minuses, we didn't feel that the minuses were enough to eliminate his name."

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Princeton, however, agreed to other concessions, including further discussions on Wilson's history and changing the school's unofficial motto: "Princeton in the Nation's Service," the title of a Wilson speech marking the school's 150th anniversary.

Monmouth University's discussion on Wilson has been considerably less contentious. Here, there have been no student protests. In fact, it was university officials who initiated the discussion, prompted by the controversy at Princeton University.

Brown, Monmouth's president, said the renaming debate is part of a "larger context of really trying to get a sense of our community. Is it a welcoming community? Is it an inclusive community? The conversations, while they are about Wilson, they’re in that larger context."

Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. Interior photo of Wilson Hall. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

The debate at Monmouth comes at a time when cultural awareness, diversity and racism — past and present — have been in the spotlight, particularly on college campuses. Consider:

  • In the past year, Harvard Law School changed its seal, which was taken from the family crest of prominent slaveholders who helped fund the university's law program two centuries ago. 
  • At the University of Missouri, two high-ranking school officials resigned at the urging of student protesters, who accused them of doing too little to combat racism.
  • An email from a Yale University official about wearing Halloween costumes spurred fierce debates on campus about balancing free speech with diversity issues. The memo asked students to avoid “culturally unaware and insensitive” costumes, including wearing blackface, feathered headdresses and turbans, that could offend minority students. 
  • The dean of students at Claremont McKenna College in California resigned after referring to students who felt marginalized as people who did not fit the school's "mold."
  • Yale refused requests to remove the name of former U.S. Vice President Calhoun (1825-1832) from a residential college; the South Carolina political leader championed slavery as a  "positive good," rather than a  "necessary evil."
  • After nine people were shot and killed by a white gunman in a black church in South Carolina last year, scores of communities throughout the South decided anew whether to ban the Confederate flag from government property.

While controversies over building names and school mascots figure in protests at some schools, the most prevalent issues for black students on college campuses mostly reflect longstanding grievances.

A December survey by the data news site FiveThirtyEight.com of demands at 51 schools where students have protested listed these as among the most common: increase diversity of professors; require diversity training; fund cultural centers; and increase diversity of students.

Renaming buildings and mascots was eighth on the list.

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At Monmouth, school officials are looking not only at a possible name change for Wilson Hall but are asking if enough is being done to welcome and include students of different backgrounds, races and religions.

Only 5 percent of Monmouth students are black and 11 percent are Hispanic. Nationally, 13 percent of Americans identified as black and 17 percent identified as Hispanic in 2014, according to the U.S. Census.

Monmouth University student Matthew Mealha, Pittstown, has lunch with friends outside the Student Center on the campus Tuesday, April 19, 2016.  The University is considering renaming Wilson Hall because of President Woodrow Wilson's racist past.

Monmouth spokeswoman Tara Peters said in an email that the university is working to increase its diversity on campus. Since 2010, the number of Hispanic students on campus rose by 3 percentage points, its black student population rose 1 percentage point and its white student population dropped 5 percentage points, according to university figures.

Still, 74 percent of Monmouth students are white, compared to 62 percent nationally.

The fable of Wilson Hall

Woodrow Wilson never actually stepped inside Monmouth University's Wilson Hall — he died in 1924, five years before the mansion's completion — but he did campaign from the grounds.

Many on campus mistakenly believe Wilson Hall was the former president's summer home. Correcting the misinformation and discussing the complicated facets of Wilson's legacy are behind many of the discussions on campus.

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"His (Wilson's) accomplishments are significant and deserve serious consideration," said Walter Greason, a professor of history at Monmouth University. "His flaws, however, are not merely personal failings, like private opinions. They are significantly at odds with the generations of progress toward equality that happened before he rose to power."

Walter Greason PhD, instructor, speaks during the meeting. Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

Greason said careful consideration needs to be given to historical figures honored on campus. He also urged university officials, in an April speech made in Wilson Hall to alumni and faculty, to conduct a year-long study of segregation and its impacts in New Jersey.

Melissa Ziobro, Monmouth's University historian, said the Wilson Hall debate has raised difficult questions for the campus community.

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"What do our commemorations say about our present-day values?" she asked a group of alumni who gathered inside Wilson Hall to discuss the possible renaming. "When we commemorate someone who lived more than 100 years ago, are we implicitly saying that we admire them and wish to emulate them, warts and all?"

Alumni and faculty debated whether changing the name amounted to sanitizing history of harsh truths, or if removing the name eliminated the opportunity to discuss the deeds of past leaders, both righteous and damaging.

"How far back do you take it?" asked Joseph Irace, a father to a 2015 Monmouth University graduate who also serves as president of the Oceanport Borough Council. "You’re taking somebody’s words from a time where when you look at his comments and his writings and his leanings, and look at it in today’s standards, it's abhorrent."

Despite those beliefs, Wilson still was president of the United States and a leader at the time, he said. Changing the name of Wilson Hall would amount to "political correctness" gone awry.

Monmouth University student Kayla Ferrara, Berlin, is interviewed outside the Student Center on the campus Tuesday, April 19, 2016.  The University is considering renaming Wilson Hall because of President Woodrow Wilson's racist past.

Across the nation, though, other once-celebrated historic figures are being re-evaluated through fresh perspectives.

In late April, the Department of Treasury announced that former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman will replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, while Jackson will be moved to the back of the bill. Jackson, once a celebrated military general, is now also remembered as a man who owned hundreds of slaves and drove American Indians from their lands east of the Mississippi River.

The move sparked controversy, including criticism from Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who suggested Jackson be left on the $20 and Tubman placed on the $2 bill.

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Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said the redesigns of the $20, $5 and $10 bills seek to encourage a national conversation about the roles of women in democracy.

At Monmouth University, officials are still grappling with the decision to rename Wilson Hall.

Monmouth University holds a discussion with local stakeholders about renaming Wilson Hall because of the former president's racist past. 
West Long Branch, NJ 
Thursday, April 14, 2016
@DhoodHood

"I’ve been thinking about this. I’m struggling myself," said Brown, the university's president. "I haven’t reached a personal conclusion yet as to what I think is best."

Ultimately, Monmouth University's Board of Trustees will decide Wilson Hall's fate. The board is expected to reach a decision in June.

Consensus remains elusive among students.

"Since Woodrow Wilson was such an important person in our history, that to rename the hall, it would almost be in disrespect in a sort of way," said Kayla Ferrara, 19, a Monmouth University freshman from Berlin, Camden County, who traces her roots to Africa, Germany and Italy.

LETTER: Wilson was a racist, judged by any standard

Matthew Mealha, 20, a Monmouth University junior from Pittstown who is white, said removing Wilson's name from the mansion might take away from the history of the school.

But Gordon, of Monmouth University's African-American Student Union, said the school should consider renaming the building since the structure is not physically tied to the former president.

Nina Anderson, the university's equity officer who co-chairs the committee about Wilson Hall, said university officials are still conducting surveys, holding listening sessions and discussions.

"It's truly just an assessment of how everyone's experiencing the campus," she said.

Monmouth University student Morgan Spann (left), Jersey City, and Danielle St. John (center), Mullica Hill, speak with a classmate outside the Student Center on the campus Tuesday, April 19, 2016.  The University is considering renaming Wilson Hall because of President Woodrow Wilson's racist past.

Monmouth student Morgan Spann, 21, of Jersey City, who is black, said she feels welcomed on campus.

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"It's not as diverse as a lot of other campuses around the state," she said, "but people are nice."

She said Monmouth's student clubs, like the Latino Association Student Organization and the National Council of Negro Women, help minorities on campus feel included.

"There's something for everyone here essentially," Spann said.

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Amanda Oglesby: 732-557-5701; aoglesby@GannettNJ.com