WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. (1010 WINS) -- Monmouth University will remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its main campus building and rename it, the school said Friday.
The university’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to remove the former president’s name from its “marquee building,” Woodrow Wilson Hall, and call it the “Great Hall at Shadow Lawn,” according to a letter posted to the school’s website on Friday.
“On this Juneteenth 2020 — a day when we celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S. — we continue to seek ways to foster a genuinely fair, inclusive, and supportive community for all,” President Patrick Leahy and Board of Trustees Chair Michael Plodwick wrote.
“Wilson was a controversial politician, who never actually set foot in the current building,” their letter added. “Removing his name, and incorporating these earlier names, connects the centerpiece of our campus more accurately to our historical roots and eliminates a symbolic barrier to the important work of creating a truly welcoming and inclusive space in the Great Hall.”
The university will also “take action to honor the contributions of Julian Abele, one of the first professionally trained African American architects, who was the lead designer of the Great Hall,” they wrote.
Friday's decision reverses one made four years ago, when the Board of Trustees voted to keep the name “Woodrow Wilson Hall." The vote came after “months of discussion, examination and collection of feedback,” the university said in a release at the time.
The 2016 decision came despite what that release described as Wilson’s “lesser-known, but well-documented, views on race and immigration that included denying African American students admission to Princeton University, re-segregating the federal government, and endorsing the Ku Klux Klan.”