The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
Trigger warnings: racial discrimination, anti-Semitism, sexism, slavery, homophobia, rape, war violence, and Woodrow Wilson.
Princeton University has a disgusting history of racial discrimination and the subjugation of marginalized peoples. It has at some point or another committed grave injustices against the most vulnerable members of our society such as slaves, Jews, and women, who were only admitted in 1969 and spent decades fighting for their right to join the private eating clubs. Princeton has not done enough to address its shameful legacy.
Fortunately, the University took a long-overdue step in rectifying one of these many remaining injustices in November, when it changed the title of the professor in charge of each residential college from “Master” to “Head of the College.” According to the Daily Princetonian, Head of Forbes College Michael Hecht wisely recognized that the term “Master is a very loaded word. The word has baggage associated with it, so let’s get rid of that baggage.” The case against the term is wonderfully made by Prof. Stephen Davis at Yale: “I think there should be no context in our society or in our university in which an African-American student, professor, or staff member—or any person for that matter—should be asked to call anyone ‘master.’ And there should be no context when male-gendered titles should be normalized as the markers of authority.” The title is obviously white supremacist and patriarchal. It deserved to be abolished.
The fact that it took Princeton so long to eliminate the sickening title “Master” is evidence that this white supremacist institution does not care about the needs of people of color. As the wonderfully brave and articulate leaders of the Black Justice League have written in several eloquent op-eds, the Wilson School must be the next thing on campus to be renamed.
To truly achieve justice and acknowledge the pain of marginalized peoples on its campus, the University must rename Marx Hall as well. The name “Marx Hall” brings Marxism to mind. While Marxism is not an inherently violent or oppressive system, the Soviet Union committed unspeakable atrocities in its name. Indeed, the Soviets had a long and bloody history of imperialist oppression. Consider the government-induced genocidal famine in Ukraine in the 1930s that led to millions of deaths. Consider the racist deportation of Poles, Tartars, Chechens, and Kalmyks during World War Two. Consider the Red Army’s mass rapes of German women upon conquering Berlin in 1945. Consider the postwar roundup and deportation of ethnic Germans from Soviet-occupied territories. Consider that the Soviets denied the basic human right of self-determination to Eastern European peoples. Consider that homosexuality was illegal. Consider the extensive gulag system of slave labor for political dissidents.
By maintaining the name Marx Hall, Princeton is clearly and abhorrently endorsing genocide, mass rape, and homophobia, just like the title “Master” constituted a University-sanctioned pro-slavery worldview.
The name Marx Hall is also triggering to the Ukrianian-, German-, and Polish-American students who suffer due to the revolting naming of the hall. My Polish grandmother escaped a Nazi ghetto and was placed in a Soviet gulag. She grew up as a child slave laborer. Every time I enter Marx Hall, I am reminded of a tyrannical and imperialist dictatorship that ruthlessly persecuted my ethnic ancestors.
Of course, we Slavic- and German-Americans are white and benefit from our privilege and Princeton’s institutionalized racism. The pain that Marx Hall causes us is nothing compared the suffering that marginalized Black students experience feel upon entering the Wilson School. But just because this is a far lesser evil does not mean that it is not worth rectifying.
At this point, it should be clear that the name Marx Hall needs to go. By renaming the masters of colleges and considering renaming the Wilson School, the University has demonstrated that it finally cares about names that make marginalized people and the victims of imperialism (or their descendants) feel unsafe on this campus.
Racists will advance two objections to my arguments. Firstly, they can claim that Princeton never oppressed Poles, Chechens, Ukrainians, or other groups persecuted by the USSR. In contrast, Princeton has a long legacy of discriminating against and enslaving Black people. So the name Wilson School is symbolic of evils committed by Princeton, whereas the name Marx Hall represents evils committed on a faraway continent. This is true, but as a university that is in the “service of all nations,” Princeton must be quick to condemn marginalization across the world. We cannot allow monuments that can be perceived in any way as oppressive to stand, even when the oppression occurred in a distant place and time. Doing so would insinuate that oppression is tolerable, so long as it happens elsewhere. This is utterly unacceptable.
Secondly, the racists will try to cite relevant facts as a reason to justify their continuing oppression of the victims of the USSR. They will point out that Marx Hall is not named for Karl Marx. It is named for Louis Marx Jr. ’53. This is utterly irrelevant.
Masters of colleges were not named after American masters of Black slaves such as James Madison and John Witherspoon, evil slaveowners who are also wrongly idolized on our campus (the names of Madison and Witherspoon Halls must be next to go). The term “master,” as applied to a collegiate setting, originated in the fourteenth century, well before the Transatlantic slave trade began, and is derived from the Latin magister, meaning head, director, or teacher. The use of “master” as a verb meaning “to reduce to subjugation” began in the fifteenth century.
As Princeton has demonstrated, context is entirely meaningless in assessing whether or not it should retain its racist titles. Had the University foolishly looked towards the relevant history in reassessing the title “Master,” it would have realized the originally benign title predated the far more malevolent use of the term. When it eliminated the title, Princeton finally got something right about racial justice: history, context, and tradition are completely worthless when students’ feelings are at stake. Marx Hall hurts my feelings. I DEMAND that the University rename it.
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