New Jersey District Will Rename Woodrow Wilson High School, Citing The Former President’s ‘Racist Values’

A New Jersey school district has started the renaming process of Woodrow Wilson High School, NJ.com reported.

The change was first announced in June 2020 by the Camden City School District (CCSD), NJ.com reported. A group of over 100 members, including parents, activists and school administrators, formed the renaming committee.

Support for the renaming of the school was propelled by the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, but residents expressed discontent for the school’s name before then, NJ.com reported.

A 2019 petition on Change.org called on the school to remove former President Woodrow Wilson’s name from the high school’s title and referred to the former president as a “white Supremacist” whose name serves “as a continuous reminder of a true systemic oppression that has not only been foreseen by US as parents but also Now through the eyes of Our Children today.”

The petition cites as racist Wilson’s move, while president of Princeton University, to prevent black students from enrolling in addition to efforts to re-segregate the federal civil service. Wilson was the governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913 and U.S. president from 1913 to 1921.

CCSD Superintendent Katrina McCombs thanked the Camden community last June when the decision to change the high school’s name was announced, NJ.com reported. Plans to rename the school were put on hold ahead of the 2021-2022 school year, but a new, 10-person committee will now lead the charge.

Princeton University removed Wilson’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs in June 2020 over his “racist thinking and policies,” according to the university’s board of trustees.

Woodrow Wilson High School did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.