STATESMAN, SCHOLAR, SLAVEHOLDER: The towering bronze statue of John Witherspoon, Princeton University’s sixth president and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is the focus of controversy, as the University debates over a graduate student petition that calls for its removal and replacement with a plaque that delineates both positive and negative facets of Witherspoon’s life. (Princeton University, Denise Applewhite)

By Donald Gilpin

Ten feet tall and standing atop a seven-foot-high pedestal, the cast bronze statue of John Witherspoon, sixth Princeton University president (1768-94) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, now presides over the University’s Firestone Plaza near East Pyne Hall — but its days may be numbered.

Witherspoon (1723-1794), in the “heroic realistic” style statue created in 2001 by Scottish sculptor Alexander Stoddart, is depicted preaching at a lectern on top of which rests an open Bible. Witherspoon was an ordained minister, a leading member of the Continental Congress, a founding father of the United States, and the only clergyman and only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence.

But he was also a slaveholder (as were the other first nine presidents of Princeton University), and a petition to remove the statue, initiated  by members of the University’s Department of Philosophy and signed by about 300 graduate students, is gaining traction. It has been taken up by the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) Naming Committee, which will be holding  “listening sessions” in the coming weeks to allow members of the University community to weigh in as it considers the petition.

“The committee’s work will be informed by rigorous research, scholarly expertise within and beyond the University community, and input from the broad University community,” a University press release stated.

Witherspoon had “a complex relationship to slavery,” according to the University’s Princeton and Slavery Project website. “Though he advocated revolutionary ideals of liberty and personally tutored several free Africans and African Americans in Princeton, he himself owned slaves and both lectured and voted against the abolition of slavery in New Jersey,” the website states.

Initiators of the petition, philosophy graduate students Waner Zhang, Kathryn Rech, Brendan Kolb, and Giulia Weissman, wrote in The Daily Princetonian that an unofficial committee of graduate students had been formed in early 2022 to address the issue of the statue.

“The basic line of reasoning we hit on as a committee was, we think the statue should be removed, because we believe it has an adverse impact on a major public university space by glorifying Witherspoon and holding him up as a model of humanity,” their statement in The Daily Princetonian reads. “Because Witherspoon was a slave owner and an opponent of abolition, we believe this elevation of Witherspoon is more than inappropriate and can create a sense of dissonance with the University’s claim to be ‘in the service of humanity.’”

The petition asserts that the statue honors the country’s and Princeton’s shameful history of racial discrimination, and the document calls for the statue to be removed and replaced by a plaque delineating both the positive and negative aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy.

“We believe that paying such honor to someone who participated actively in the enslavement of human beings, and used his scholarly gifts to defend the practice, is today a distraction from the University’s mission,” the petition states.

Controversy over the Witherspoon statue arises in the context of local, University, and national concerns with the legacy of slavery — from Confederate monuments throughout the South to names of public buildings across the country to local reminders of slavery in the town of Princeton. 

Princeton Public Schools removed Witherspoon’s name from its middle school two years ago, but Witherspoon Street remains as a major artery and commercial and cultural hub of the town. 

For a number of years Princeton University struggled with the legacy of its 13th president and the United States’ 28th president Woodrow Wilson, whose name was on the University’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) as well as a residential college. After protests and opposition from a number of quarters and much deliberation, the University in 2020 removed Wilson’s name from the public affairs school and the residential hall and commissioned an abstract sculpture that communicated both Wilson’s positive accomplishments and contributions as well as his racist views and policies.

The CPUC Committee on Naming was created in 2016 to advise the University Board of Trustees in regard to the naming of buildings, programs, positions, and spaces at the University and recognizing individuals who would bring a diverse presence to the campus.