Woodrow Wilson 'Mural' To Be Removed From Princeton Dining Hall

Princeton, NJ -- Nearly a month after Princeton University said it wouldn’t remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from a pair of buildings on campus, it announced a picture of the controversial former president will be removed from a dining hall wall at one of its residential colleges.

A black and white picture showing Wilson throwing out the first pitch at a Washington Senators baseball game in 1915 will be removed from the wall of a dining hall at Wilson College, the University announced on Wednesday.

Wilson is a graduate of the University, and served as president of Princeton University from 1902-1910, and as New Jersey Governor from 1910-1913, just before becoming president. He supported segregation, and appointed Cabinet members who segregated federal departments.

The Council of Heads and by the Campus Art Steering Committee endorsed the decision, and the picture is expected to be taken down in the next few days.

"Its size and prominence in the Wilcox dining hall has seemed to us — as it has to President (Christopher L.) Eisgruber as well — as 'unduly celebratory' and not in keeping with the spirit of Wilson College's founding wish to have Princeton be a place that is truly diverse and inclusive, and one that embraces, respects and values all its members," Wilson College head Professor Eduardo Cadava wrote in a statement posted on the Wilson College website.

Cadava went on to suggest that the picture be replaced with a "visual representation that embodies the college's unique history in relation to issues of inclusion and diversity."

No specifics were given about a replacement, though.

The photo has adorned the Wilson College hall since 2009.

Cadava told college members that Wilson College was founded by students "as part of a stance against elitism and exclusion."

Wilson Lodge was founded in 1957 by students protesting the exclusionary policies of eating clubs.

In 1960 the University opened Wilcox Hall and the New Quad dormitories in honor of Wilson’s idea to install a residential college system at the University.

On April 4, the University’s Board of Trustees accepted a report from its 10-member committee formed to explore the issue that calls for both the school of public and international affairs and the undergraduate residential college that bear Wilson's name to continue to do so.

The report also calls for “an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity and inclusion” at the University, with concerted efforts to implement a broad range of existing initiatives and take additional actions.

The committee was assembled after about 30 students who are part of the Black Justice League, a Black Lives Matter group,staged a 32-hour sit-in on campus in November.

The students were demanding Wilson’s name be removed from college buildings and programs, as well as the removal of the picture, often referred to as a mural, from the Wilcox Dining Hall.

"To refer to the image as a mural is to confer an artistic merit on the image that it does not really have and, because it was only installed in the dining hall seven years ago and, mostly as a signature design element, it also does not have the longstanding value that other honorific memorials might have," Cadava said. " … From my perspective — a perspective that I believe honors the wonderful history of Wilson College — the ad hoc student committee's recommendation to remove the Wilson 'mural' is an effort to lay one stone aright today, in the hope that others can be lain aright in the future."