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Matt Bai: Don’t erase Woodrow Wilson.  Expose him. 

President Woodrow Wilson was both a Princeton alum and the university’s president before he went on to become the governor of New Jersey.  He was also a racist, a bad husband and a demonstrably unpleasant guy in general.  Which is the case that’s now gaining ground at Princeton, where students are agitating to have Wilson’s name and image expunged from campus.  This, amid a rash of similar protests around the country, is what university educators everywhere might call a “teachable moment” — if only they can summon the courage to actually teach.  But there’s a bigger picture here to defend Wilson’s place on campus.  First and most obviously, you’re going down a perilous road when you start judging historical figures by modern standards, separating morality from its context. 

Their job is to make students understand that truth is often confounding and uncomfortable.  Matt Bai

As a segregationist, Wilson was hardly an outlier among white Southerners.  If you’re going to indict Wilson for the crimes of another century, then where do you stop?  If I were the president of Princeton, instead of cowering before protesters and empowering some commission to decide Wilson’s fate, I’d leave his name right where it is.  But I’d put a plaque in the lobby of the public policy school explaining that Wilson was a visionary statesman and, at the same time, an avowed racist with repugnant ideas.  Exposing Wilson publicly would send the right message to this and future generations, which is that times change, legacies are complicated and leaders are flawed.