Before he was president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University, where today students are speaking out against his segregationist views.
Last year, student protesters held a 32-hour sit-in outside the office of Princeton's current president, demanding that the university agree to consider renaming buildings dedicated to Wilson. On Monday, the board of trustees announced his name will not be removed from campus institutions like the School of Public and International Affairs, but added that Princeton will start showing "transparency in recognizing Wilson's failings and shortcomings as well as the visions and achievements that led to the naming of the school and the college in the first place."
Records show Wilson making several statements that upset today's students. In 1909, for example, he told a black student interested in applying to Princeton "that it is altogether inadvisable for a colored man to enter Princeton," and once said "the whole temper and tradition of the place are such that no negro has ever applied for admission," NPR reports.
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