Posted on October 14, 2020

Princeton Will Drop President Woodrow Wilson and Rename School After Influential Black Finance Expert

Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News, October 9, 2020

History wont only be taught at Princeton University — it will be made.

The Ivy League college is naming a residential college after Mellody Hobson, an influential finance expert who is an alumna and major donor to the school.

She will be the first Black woman to have that honor in the Elizabeth, N.J.-founded school’s 274-year history.

Hobson College will be built on a site once named for former President Woodrow Wilson, who served as the commander-in-chief from 1913 to 1921.

Amid America’s racial reawakening following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Princeton announced that it would remove the late Democratic politician’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs and one of its residential colleges, citing his “racist thinking and policies.”

“No one from my family had graduated from college when I arrived at Princeton from Chicago, and yet even as I looked up at buildings named after the likes of Rockefeller and Forbes, I felt at home,” Hobson, a member of Princeton’s Class of 1991, said. “My hope is that my name will remind future generations of students — especially those who are Black and brown and the ‘firsts’ in their families — that they too belong. Renaming Wilson College is my very personal way of letting them know that our past does not have to be our future.”

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