By PETE WALTON
A question on the Nov. 6 general election ballot asks Neptune City voters if they want to change the name of the borough’s elementary school.
“Do you approve removing the name of ‘Woodrow Wilson’ from the Neptune City School Building?” the ballot question asks.
According to an “interpretive statement” on the ballot, the question “is asking if voters want the name ‘Woodrow Wilson’ and all references associated with ‘Woodrow Wilson’ be removed from the school building and/or school district.”
The statement says that “a new name for the school building and all associated references will be decided at a later date” should the question receive a majority of affirmative votes.
Four years ago, Board of Education President Anthony Susino told the Neptune City Borough Council that members of the public should decide whether to rename the Woodrow Wilson School, which is the only public school in the borough.
The school is named after Wilson, former governor of New Jersey and 28th president of the United States. The Democrat is considered the pioneer of the progressive political movement. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920 for his work as architect of the League of Nations, forerunner to today’s United Nations.
However, Wilson’s views on segregation resurfaced in recent years and prompted a number of educational institutions to reevaluate their acknowledgement of his legacy.
Monmouth University voted to rename Woodrow Wilson Hall on its campus to The Great Hall at Shadow Lawn.
When Princeton University dropped Wilson’s name from its public policy school, the university Board of Trustees said that “Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars, students and alumni must be firmly committed to combatting the scourge of racism in all its forms.”
No African-Americans were admitted to Princeton while Wilson served as its president, though fellow Ivy League colleges Harvard and Yale were integrated decades earlier.
“Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you,” Wilson said in 1914 to Harvard graduate William Monroe Trotter, editor of an abolitionist newspaper in Boston.
As president of the United States, Wilson resegregated the civil service system and allowed his cabinet to segregate the Treasury, the post office, the Navy and other government departments.
When he brought up the subject to the council, Susino said he would support renaming the school to the Neptune City School if residents decided to change the name.
“It’s their school so I figured they should have a say,” the board president said.
In 1928, Neptune City voters approved a proposal to build a new school at Springdale and Sylvania avenues. According to historian Richard F. Cottrell, architect Alexander Merchant was hired to draw plans similar to a new school which was being built in Farmingdale.
In his book Neptune City Millenium History, Cottrell said bonds worth $80,000 for the land and construction of the new school were bought by the Teachers Pension and Annuity Fund.
At its meeting on Feb. 13, 1929, the board voted to name the school after Woodrow Wilson, who died five years earlier at the age of 67.