By PETE WALTON
Neptune City residents have rejected a proposal to change the name of the Woodrow Wilson Elementary School.
A question on the Nov. 5 general election ballot was defeated by a margin of more than 2 to 1, according to early results released by Monmouth County Clerk Christine Giordano Hanlon.
The early vote total was 1477 to 628.
“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.
In 2020, 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.
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.
Princeton University removed Wilson’s name from its public policy school.
“Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars, students and alumni must be firmly committed to combating the scourge of racism in all its forms,” the Princeton trustees said.
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, Wilson resegregated the civil service system and allowed his cabinet to segregate the Treasury, the post office, the Navy and other government departments.
Monmouth County Commissioner Director Thomas A. Arnone, a former borough mayor, attended a recent council meeting and spoke out as a resident about what he called “the disturbing news” of the referendum on renaming the borough’s only school.
Arnone, a Republican, said he opposed removing the name of Wilson, a Democrat, from the school.
Arnone said that keeping Wilson’s name on the school would serve as a reminder not to repeat wrongs of the past.
“That’s why history is history,” Arnone said. “Absolutely, racism is not welcome today. We know that now. Let’s keep it there [Wilson’s name on the school] to have something to remember what’s not right.”
At its meeting on Feb. 13, 1929, the Board of Education voted to name the school after Wilson, who died five years earlier at the age of 67.
