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Naming Rites for Naming Wrongs: What We Talk about When We Talk aboutWoodrow Wilson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2016

Dara Z. Strolovitch  and
Chaya Y. Crowder
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Abstract

Woodrow Wilson is the only American political scientist to have served asPresident of the United States. In the time between his political science Ph.D.(from Johns Hopkins, in 1886) and his tenure as president (1913–21),he also served as president of Princeton University (1902–10) andpresident of the American Political Science Association (1909–10).Wilson is one of the most revered figures in American political thought and inAmerican political science. The Woodrow Wilson Award is perhapsAPSA’s most distinguished award, given annually for the best book ongovernment, politics, or international affairs published in the previous year,and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation at Princeton University.

Wilson has also recently become the subject of controversy, on the campus ofPrinceton University, and in the political culture more generally, in connectionwith racist statements that he made and the segregationist practices of hisadministration. A group of Princeton students associated with the“Black Lives Matter” movement has demanded thatWilson’s name be removed from two campus buildings, one of which isthe famous Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (see MarthaA. Sandweiss, “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscapeof Race,” http://www.thenation.com/article/woodrow-wilson-princeton-and-the-complex-landscape-of-race/).Many others have resisted this idea, noting that Wilson is indeed an importantfigure in the history of twentieth-century liberalism and Progressivism in theUnited States.

A number of colleagues have contacted me suggesting thatPerspectives ought to organize a symposium on the Wilsoncontroversy. Although we do not regularly organize symposia around currentevents, given the valence of the controversy and its connection to issues wehave featured in our journal (see especially the September 2015 issue on“The American Politics of Policing and Incarceration”),and given Wilson's importance in the history of our discipline, wehave decided to make an exception in this case. We have thus invited a widerange of colleagues whose views on this issue will interest our readers tocomment on this controversy. —Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor.

Information

Type
Reflections Symposium: The Controversy over Woodrow Wilson'sLegacy: A Discussion
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 770 - 775
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016 

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