Witherspoon statue to remain on campus, Board of Trustees conclude

The Princeton University Board of Trustees has rejected calls to remove John Witherspoon’s statue from campus, according to a letter released on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

This brings an end to a lengthy consideration process that began in November 2022. At the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting that month, administrators announced that the CPUC Committee on Naming was considering a proposal to remove or replace the statue of John Witherspoon.

Advocates of removal have argued that the statue, which was erected in 2001, should “be removed from Firestone Plaza and an informational plaque be put in its place” because Witherspoon was a slaveholder.

“After deliberating about these recommendations in light of the principles, we do not believe that questions about John Witherspoon’s legacy provide sufficient ground for removal or relocation of the statue,” the board concluded.

The trustees’ decision was based on a set of “principles” surrounding the renaming and changing of campus iconography established in 2021 by an ad hoc committee.

Calls for the statue’s removal have become a point of contention, both in national media and in campus discourse. Some, like the original petitioners, argued that the statue should be removed because it inappropriately honors him. Others argued that statues play an important role in historical memory and saw this attempt of removal as an example of “wokeness” and an attack on free speech. Petitions have been widely circulated on campus in support of both viewpoints.

The debate around the Witherspoon statue closely mirrors other debates around the legacy of other historical figures on campus — most notably Woodrow Wilson, whose name was removed from both the School of Public and International Affairs and what was formerly First College in 2020.

The efforts demanding the removal of Wilson’s name, as well as University implementation of reparations and anti-racist curriculum, were largely propelled by the Black Justice League, a student group dedicated to anti-racism advocacy on campus that rose to prominence in 2015. The University had initially rejected the BJL’s call to rename the formerly-named Wilson School in 2016, but later obliged following the death of George Floyd and subsequent global racial reckoning in 2020.

The statement from the Trustees did not outright rule out changing the statue’s presentation or location based on questions like “contextualization, aesthetics, and possible educational uses of the statue … which are separable from those about Witherspoon’s personal legacy.” The Trustees deferred the future of the statue’s place on campus to the Campus Art Steering Committee.

This piece is breaking and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Christopher Bao is an assistant News editor and the accessibility director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.

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