Johns Hopkins to Remove President Woodrow Wilson’s Name From Fellowship Program

Johns Hopkins to Remove President Woodrow Wilson’s Name From Fellowship Program

By today’s standards, Woodrow Wilson was not a great guy, but he is still a former American president.

The College Fix reports:

Johns Hopkins to scrub President Woodrow Wilson’s name from program

Johns Hopkins University is preparing to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from a fellowship program and recontextualize its use on a residence hall entryway.

The decision by the university’s Committee to Establish Principles on Naming and Name Review Board, created in 2020, is being met with criticism both on and off campus.

The board came to the decision on Oct. 24 after a year long deliberation, according to the Hub, Johns Hopkins’ news website.

It recommended that the former president’s name be removed entirely from the Woodrow Wilson Research Fellowship, which will be renamed the University Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

The board additionally advised that Wilson’s name stay up on the Alumni Memorial Residence I Wilson House entryway but that context should be added.

“Both recommendations have been approved by the university’s board of trustees,” the Hub reports.

The university media relations office did not respond to two emails this week, asking when the changes will be made and how the Wilson House entryway will be “contextualiz[ed],” as the committee recommended.

The board based its decision, in part, on what it considered to be Wilson’s negative impact on Black Americans.

These included his “segregation of federal workspaces in Washington, D.C.,” “racist views and writings,” and “tenure as president of Princeton University during which he used his administrative authority to ensure the study body remained white and male,” as reported by the Hub.

The College Republicans group at Johns Hopkins called the name change “a pointless effort” in an emailed statement last week to The College Fix.

“Efforts to rename a research fellowship or disgrace our founder serve only to fuel the toxic, grievance-perpetuating cancel culture mindset—a mindset that does nothing but fill the pockets of opportunistic faculty and feed the conceited egos of so-called ‘social justice warriors,’” the statement read.

“They accomplish nothing but erase history, relitigate disputes, and deepen our divisions,” the group stated. “America’s history has never been perfect, but it has always strived to be.”

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