Board of Trustees issues decision on Witherspoon statue

The Princeton University Board of Trustees released this statement on Oct. 2:

We are grateful to the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) Committee on Naming for its response to the petition regarding the statue of John Witherspoon that stands in front of East Pyne Hall. We appreciate the Committee’s careful application of the principles established by this Board to guide decisions about renaming and changing campus iconography. We wish to extend special thanks to Professor Beth Lew-Williams, the committee’s chair during this process, and Professor Angela Creager, who served as interim chair in the 2022-2023 academic year.

The Naming Committee’s report is the result of a two-year process that involved numerous listening sessions with a range of campus constituencies, broad solicitation of input from the University community, and two half-day symposia featuring panels of experts from within and beyond the University.

We endorse the Committee’s recommendation to release its findings to the public and do so immediately. As the Committee accurately states in its report, “This report contains important, new findings about John Witherspoon, his ties to slavery, and his larger legacy, as well as the current state of iconography on our campus.”

The Committee determined that “John Witherspoon is worthy of recognition, but not canonization,” and it recommended that the University furnish viewers of the statue with information that would “reduce the glorification of Witherspoon by offering a more complex and accurate history” than the partial account currently provided on the statue’s plinth. The CPUC Committee on Naming also recommended that the University consider relocating the statue. 

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 principles endorsed by this Board include a presumption against altering University honorifics on the basis of concerns about a historical individual’s legacy. We believe that this presumption is applicable to the current case.

That does not mean the statue should or must remain in its current state or location. During this process, questions have been raised about contextualization, aesthetics and possible educational uses of the statue, its scale, its “fit … within the University’s existing memorial landscape,” and how best to provide information about the statue, its history, and its meaning. These questions, which are separable from those about Witherspoon’s personal legacy, deserve attention and resolution. Such an undertaking appropriately lies within the purview of the Campus Art Steering Committee and we refer these issues and the discussions related to them to that committee to address, without any preconceptions as to the outcome.

The CPUC Committee on Naming correctly noted that the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Principles to Govern Renaming and Changes to Campus Iconography recommended “the establishment of a periodic review policy applicable to prominent elements of our Campus Art collection, which includes a range of sculptures and installations across campus.” More specifically, the Ad Hoc Committee stated that “[t]here is no need to suppose that all artwork must move or rotate regularly; some pieces are designed for or are uniquely appropriate to their current locations. Yet, conversely, there is also no reason to suppose that once installed artworks must remain in place in perpetuity. Indeed, some artworks have been successfully relocated already.”

We agree with the CPUC Committee on Naming that it would be desirable for the University administration to commence the review envisioned by the Ad Hoc Committee, beginning with the Witherspoon Statue. We also agree that the Campus Art Steering Committee should conduct it. The review, like other decisions by the Campus Art Steering Committee, should focus on the educational and aesthetic qualities of campus artwork as well as how artwork is described. We commend the report of the CPUC Naming Committee to the Campus Art Steering Committee as it commences its work.

Finally, consistent with the Committee on Naming’s recommendations, we vigorously reaffirm the University’s commitment to a bold and proactive approach to diversifying campus narratives and imagery.

We reiterate our gratitude to the members of the CPUC Committee on Naming and all members of the University community for their engagement in this process.