Teacher Wants Woodrow Wilson’s Name Removed from School
History has finally caught up to one of the best known progressives.
Dave Huber reports at the College Fix.
The name change craze continues: Add Woodrow Wilson to the list
A history teacher at (Woodrow) Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon is demanding that the school change its name.
Hyung Nam tweeted “(Expletive) Wilson and any school he’s named after” noting an article in Politico that discussed the former president’s screening of the infamous film Birth of a Nation.
To be fair, Nam didn’t jump on the bandwagon, so to speak, during the furor over the Confederate flag. He’s been critical of his school’s name since the spring: “We’d have to be ignorant about history to continue to affiliate ourselves with this man,” he emailed the school’s staff back in April.
[Nam] has interested a few students in his cause.
Maddy VanSpeybroeck is an incoming junior and co-founder of the WHS Feminist Student Union.
“The idea of our schools being named after a person with these ideals just doesn’t sit right with a lot of people,” VanSpeybroeck says, “Especially as feminist ideals and racial ideals are becoming more something our nation is talking about right now.”
She says the effort has encountered “school spirit-related” and budget-related concerns, such as the cost to modify signage and sports uniforms.
“I definitely hear what they are saying, but there are always going to be roadblocks and budget issues, and you just have to prioritize your morals over those kinds of things,” VanSpeybroeck says.
As an example of an alternative, VanSpeybroeck says the students like the idea of a woman of color, such as Ida B. Wells, a political figure who was born a slave in 1862.
Kendall Berry, co-founder of the WHS’s new Black Student Union and a recent Young, Gifted and Black honoree, also is supportive of the effort, which has taken a break until school gets back in session.
The name change craze continues: Add Woodrow Wilson to the list (The College Fix)
Comments
Gee, someone actually did some research to find out what a horrid man Wilson was. Now if only the public schools would follow. They won’t because Wilson is the darling of the progressive movement. I doubt Princeton Univ will be removing Wilson’s name from anything there at any time.
There is so much bad in the best of us,
and so much good in the worst of us,
that the rest of us
have no room to talk.
–too lazy to look up the real quote and author
Woodrow Wilson is no exception to the above. Instead of erasing his name like a bunch of addled Communists, we should consider adding to whatever the school has been teaching about his actions.
I’ve been binge-watching the Netflix series “Heroes,” which is admittedly fiction. It does capture the notion of human beings as being mostly a mixture of good, bad, and injured, as well as the political notion of “strange bedfellows” very well. I recommend it to anybody who thinks there is anything simple about our political system.
Demonizing Woodrow Wilson, or worse, forgetting what he did, is not the answer. We need to remember ALL of what he did, as well as what he and his supporters said for why he did it. My personal view is that revisionism and speculation by his political enemies should be construed as gossip. However, we need to make the effort to know what he did, in order to have any chance of avoiding his mistakes.
We must have candor about our history: it is full of struggle, aspiration, virtue, brilliant ideas, heroism, malice and truly stupid (in retrospect) mistakes.
I can’t get behind the idea that revisionists should be allowed to affect our historical understanding of every American who ever enjoyed a “darkie joke” (as Wilson famously did).
His personal tendency toward racism, no matter how repellent by modern or contemporary standards, really doesn’t have anything to do with his status as one of the most significant Presidents—for better or worse—of the twentieth century.
Nothing to worry about (from the original article):
“Nam says he forwarded his request to the Office of Equity and Partnerships.”
They’ll take care of it.
I wonder if Wilson’s hostility toward the constitution will be seen as a bug or as a feature.
This movement is a dangerous one. Every national figure can be dismissed for one reason or another because man is essentially flawed. First we will start by purging symbols and objects pertaining to the long dead. Then, we will progress to purging people. (Heck, the Democrats have already begun that with the harassment of Conservatives by the IRS, FBI, and other governmental agencies.) there won’t be enough body bags when the final purge begins.