Princeton University, as promised in response to last month’s demands of Black Justice League (BJL) students, has formed a special trustee committee to consider the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, and has created a website to collect information and opinions about Wilson and his legacy (http://wilsonlegacy.princeton.edu/).

The committee has also invited scholars and biographers to share their understanding of Wilson and his legacy for posting on the website, and it hopes to begin publishing some of these scholarly opinions in January.

Trustees vice-chair Brett Henry, a Princeton 1969 graduate and vice president and general counsel of Partners Healthcare System, will chair the 10-member committee.

In soliciting views from faculty, staff, undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, and others, the committee asks participants to respond to the following questions:

“What are your views about Wilson’s record and impact as president of the United States?” “What are your views about Wilson’s legacy at Princeton today and about how Wilson is and should be commemorated and recognized?” “How do you believe Princeton should think about and periodically reexamine its broader historical legacy and the representation of that legacy on campus?” More than 170 comments have been received so far.

“The Board of Trustees has authority over how the University recognizes Wilson, and our committee will consider specifically whether or not changes should be made in how the University recognizes his legacy,” Mr. Henry said. “But we are also interested in how the University should think about and periodically reexamine its broader historical legacy and the representation of that legacy on campus. We are eager to hear from members of the University community with a broad range or perspectives on both Wilson’s legacy and these broader questions.”

The discussion about Wilson’s legacy is well underway elsewhere on the Princeton campus and in local and national media.

From a group in opposition to the BJL, Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) formed immediately after the November 18 Nassau Hall sit-in, to the Daily Princetonian student newspaper to the New York Times, editorials, commentary, and letters to the editor have debated Mr. Wilson’s actions and the retention of his name on Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and its Wilson residential college

One prominent voice weighing in last week was that of Princeton Professor of Bioethics Peter Singer, who invited representatives from the BJL and the POCC groups to discuss the issues — the universal concerns about civil disobedience and honoring the names of historical figures as well as the particular Princeton University conflicts — in his Practical Ethics class. He then followed up with an article “Should We Honor Racists?” in last Friday’s Project Syndicate “the world’s opinion page,” published in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

In that article Mr. Singer discussed at length Mr. Wilson’s extraordinary “progressive” and “idealistic” contributions to Princeton University, to the country and to the world. He concluded, however, that Wilson, along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others “who become symbolic vehicles for inculcating civic virtues,” warrant another look from contemporary perspectives.

“As our moral standards shift … different characteristics of the historical person become more relevant,” Mr. Singer stated, “and the symbol can develop a different meaning.” In the context of 2015, Mr. Singer argued, Wilson’s racism becomes “more salient” than it was in 1948, when Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs was named for him. Mr. Singer urged that Wilson’s contributions not be erased but that they “be recognized in a manner that creates a nuanced conversation about changing values, and includes both his positive achievements and his contributions to America’s racist policies and practices.”

“The end result of the conversation we should be having,” Mr. Singer concluded, “may well be the recognition that to attach Wilson’s name to a college or school sends a message that misrepresents the values for which the institution stands.”

Mr. Singer emphasized the value of the learning experience involved in the current conflict, and stated, “I certainly have benefited: I have taught at Princeton for 16 years, and I have admired some of Wilson’s foreign policy positions for much longer; but I owe my knowledge of Wilson’s racism to the BJL.”

Meanwhile, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber has, in following up on conversations with BJL members during the November 18 sit-in, charged Wilson College head Professor Eduardo Cadava with beginning the process to consider the fate of a large photographic mural of Woodrow Wilson in the College’s Wilcox Hall.

Mr. Eisgruber noted that “in my own personal view, the mural’s current location is problematic because it dominates a space that is intended to be a site of community for all students in the College. If there are students who find the mural offensive because of Wilson’s views about race, that objection is, in my opinion, a good reason to change the decoration of the dining hall to make it feel more inclusive.” Mr. Eisgruber urged Mr. Cadava, in considering the fate of the mural, to take advantage of the information about Woodrow Wilson to be published by the trustees committee.

From all quarters comes a call for the University to take advantage of this educational moment and to engage vigorously in the deliberative process before reaching any final decisions.