Princeton University must show “an ounce of courage” against pressure from “radical small college student activists” who are demanding that the school remove a statue honoring the university’s former president, Fox News’ Pete Hegseth said.
The Princeton University Nomenclature Committee is reviewing a proposal to remove a statue of the school’s sixth president, John Witherspoon, because of his complicated history with slavery. The petition, signed by more than 300 people in Princeton, suggests replacing the statue with a plaque “detailing both the positive and negative aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy.”
“The idea that his statue would be removed is completely contrary to history, contrary to what the university says it stands for,” said Hegseth, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend and a Princeton alumnus. “It would be bowing to a really loud small percentage of radicals trying to get their way on any college campus.”
PETE HEGSETH: PRINCETON SHOULD SHOW ‘ONE OF COURAGE’ IN FRONT OF THE MOB
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Hegseth was the editor of the university’s conservative newspaper, The Princeton Tory, when the statue was erected in 2001 and wrote a column praising Witherspoon’s legacy. He proposed that the school offer an undergraduate class, “The History of Princeton and the Influential Princetonians.”
“I don’t think most Princeton students know who Witherspoon is,” Hegseth said. “It’s a shame, they should, but they probably won’t.”
Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister who emigrated from Scotland to serve as the school’s president from 1768 to 1794. An influential figure in the American Revolution, Witherspoon helped draft the Articles of Confederation and was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
But activists, in part, want to remove the statue because the former Princeton president owned two slaves.
“The irony is that Witherspoon was against slavery,” Hegseth said. “He may have owned two slaves, almost all wealthy whites had them back then…but he worked to free the slaves and hoped and believed that the founding generation would be one of the last to own them.”
In Scotland, Witherspoon broke with tradition and baptized his town’s only slave and offered him the same religious instruction as white parishioners, according to the university’s website. At Princeton, he privately tutored the school’s first free black students, as they were not allowed to formally enroll in the university.
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Members of Princeton University are calling for the removal of the statue of John Witherspoon, the school’s sixth president.
(John Greim)
Despite believing slavery was wrong, Witherspoon thought immediate abolition would do more harm than good and advocated a gradual end to the practice, according to Presbyterian pastor Kevin DeYoung, who wrote his 2019 doctoral dissertation on Witherspoon.
Witherspoon chaired a committee in 1790 that recommended against abolition in New Jersey and asserted that slavery was already dying out in the state. Activists argue that Witherspoon stood up for slavery and that the school should not continue to honor him with the 10-foot statue.
The graduate students who started the petition to tear down the statue said Witherspoon, at the time, “did not stand out among people in power because of his commitment to upholding racist norms or power structures,” but still did not deserve such a high-profile statue, Princeton Alumni Weekly reported.
Washington Post columnist George Will called it “another example of ‘presenteeism’: judging the past through the lens of the present.” He wrote that it “illustrates how the awakened become a stifling and controlling minority.”
“He’s not perfect, nobody is,” Hegseth said of Witherspoon. “But instead of tearing it down or getting rid of it, we should be teaching about it.”
Hegseth also advocated against “this subjective diversity, equity, inclusiveness, left-wing worldview” in which people from the past are judged by modern standards.
The school’s naming committee has been holding listening sessions since November to hear what alumni, faculty, staff and students think should be done about the statue. Princeton’s board of trustees will have the last word on the matter.
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“This one is easy if Princeton has an ounce of courage,” Hegesth said. “But they’re going to sit through these little listening sessions and they’re going to listen to these little radical activists complaining about their horrible, privileged lives in Princeton.”
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Now, as a former student, he said the school cannot give in to the world’s “waking view that everything from the past must be torn down unless it is perfect by today’s judgment.”
Hegseth credits Princeton with keeping free thought thanks to the likes of Professor Robert George and said the school’s response will set the tone for similar controversies in the future.
“Places like Harvard and Yale and others, they’re all left-wing empty spaces right now,” he said. “But Princeton has stuck to the idea of free thought. Giving in to something like this indicates that you’re also withdrawing completely.”
To see Hegseth’s reaction to the school’s controversy, click here.
