To the Editor:

Few people can deny the positive power of student protests throughout our history — demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches decrying the evils of the Vietnam War, segregation, nuclear proliferation, to name a few, are all significant contributions made by our country’s justice-seeking youth.

However, I’m hard pressed to understand the significant societal value of the current student protest over Woodrow Wilson. Why this protest now? I first became aware of this movement several weeks ago when I saw an expensive full color poster on Nassau Street of Woodrow Wilson’s face alongside a statement that he made more than 100 years ago referring to the American Reconstruction (1865-1877).

Surely, there are many protest-worthy causes today, including modern day slavery or human trafficking.
Slavery statistics are hard to come by because slavery is ostensibly against the law and slave trading is performed in a shadowy underworld, but even by the most conservative of estimates there are about 50,000 slaves in the U.S.A. today with about 5,000 human beings sold here every year for forced manual and sexual labor. Ending slavery in the United States would seem to be a more deserving cause for student protestors, especially for groups whose history has been so blighted by this evil practice.

Anne Woodbridge

Palmer Square West