On Oct. 2, the Princeton University Board of Trustees announced in a letter that John Witherspoon’s statue would remain on campus. The decision came after an extensive review process that began in November 2022 by the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) Committee on Naming.
A former University president, minister, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon also owned enslaved people. The statue, unveiled in 2001, sparked heated debate over whether it should remain on campus following an investigation into Witherspoon’s legacy from the Princeton Slavery Project. Those advocating for its removal have argued that the statue “pays honor” to Witherspoon, while supporters contend that his relationship to slavery was “far more benign” than his contemporaries and emphasize his pivotal role as a founding figure of the United States as justification for keeping the statue.
“I definitely supported the statue coming down,” Bryce Springfield ’25, a signatory of the 2022 petition to remove the statue and a leader of the Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of America, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I think statues like [Witherspoon] are designed to honor the people they’re portraying, and if they’re not reflecting the values that we hold now, I don’t think that we should continue honoring them.”
Bijaan Noormohamed ’27 told the ‘Prince’ that he “honestly wasn’t that shocked” about the decision and commented on the architectural merits of the statue.
“[The statue] is so central to the geography around the Firestone complex, that if it had been removed, it would have been quite a striking difference,” he said. “I feel like it does architecturally and spatially fit nicely into that area.”
Some students saw the University’s decision as indicative of a broader, systemic issue that extends beyond the statue itself.
“I see the Witherspoon statue as a physical representation of the fact that even if the University portrays themselves as being woke and caring towards the minorities here, they don’t actually,” Blue Carlsson ’25, a former co-president of Natives at Princeton, told the ‘Prince.’ Prior to the announcement that the statue would remain, Carlsson occasionally hosted “Witherspoon Wednesdays,” where they would sit in front of the statue and distribute QR codes providing information about Witherspoon’s history as a slaveowner.
“At first I was annoyed, and then I was glad because it serves as something that I can point to and say, ‘Hey, the institution doesn’t care about us,’” Carlsson continued.
“There’s also deeper structural issues that I think have led up to this [decision], not limited to universities having an autocratic structure, not democratically controlled by its community,” Springfield said, noting his opposition to University investments “in fossil fuels and apartheid” as an example.
Advocates for the statue lauded the Committee’s decision but criticized various aspects of the University’s handling of the statue.
“I was glad that the Trustees decided to keep the statue, but I was disappointed in the entire process,” Zach Gardner ’26, president of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’
“While the Trustees have voted one way today, they may very well vote another way tomorrow,” Gardner continued. “We should value long-term stability in institutional memory, not look to the Trustees to rename and remove on the whim of certain portions of the student body.”
Several members of the CPUC Committee on Naming declined a request for comment.
Bill Hewitt ’74, an advocate to keep the statue, argued that “the University has misrepresented Witherspoon in a defamatory way.”
“I’ve learned more about Witherspoon because of the controversy, I’ve come to believe he was truly a great man and fully worthy of Princeton’s honor,” he said. Hewitt has authored several articles challenging the Princeton & Slavery Project’s portrayal of Witherspoon.
While the moral atrocity of slavery was undisputed, some advocated for a more nuanced interpretation of Witherspoon’s stance on the issue.
“He was a pretty benign slave holder. His position on the public history of slavery was more enlightened than most of his contemporaries,” Stuart Taylor Jr. ’70 said. “He wanted abolition, but he wanted it gradually.”
While Witherspoon did oppose immediate emancipation, claiming it would “make them free to their own ruin,” Taylor interprets this as meaning that he wanted to provide a way for enslaved people to earn a livelihood, “which isn’t created overnight.”
“If the University made a rule to only celebrate uncontroversial figures in its history, then no buildings would be named, no statutes built, nor any legacies honored,” Gardner wrote. Gardner said he believes that the University should approach the naming of buildings and commissioning of memorials with “a humble disposition, never forgetting that one day they too will stand before the tribunal of future moral scrutiny.”
Both supporters of removal and defenders of the statue emphasized the importance of contextualization, suggesting that it could foster a more nuanced understanding of Witherspoon’s connections to slavery.
“With a mere brief explanation and QR code, people could have a chance to go off and explore his history, his relation to slavery, what he did, where he might have done better, and where the record is just simply unclear,” Hewitt said.
Drawing parallels between the discussion surrounding Witherspoon and the 2020 decision to rename the Woodrow Wilson School, Noormohamed emphasized the necessity for individuals on both sides to “air their opinions” before progressing further. “I think this could be the beginning of some sort of class or some sort of academic initiative that the University could take,” Noormohamed said.
The Committee also expressed that “John Witherspoon is worthy of recognition, but not canonization,” recommending the University offer a “more complex and accurate history” than the brief account currently provided on the plinth.
Allan Shen ’24 proposed the idea of erecting statues “of individuals who best exemplified the most important values of Princeton,” citing individuals such as John Bardeen GS ’36, the only two-time recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, the novelist Thomas Mann, who lectured at Princeton while in exile from Nazi Germany, and John Rawls ’43, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.
Shen is a News editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’
“Being able to literally walk among these individuals on Princeton’s campus would very much convey the best of Princeton’s values to students, faculty, and visitors alike, and serve as a bridge to Princeton’s past,” he said.
The Trustees’ letter did not completely dismiss the possibility of altering the statue’s presentation or location, which are matters now in the hands of the Campus Art Steering Committee.
Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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