Malcolm Gladwell thinks Woodrow Wilson protesters ‘didn’t have a good argument’

‘Lots of people in this world are harmed by racism, but not undergraduates at Princeton’

Malcolm Gladwell has said he thinks Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson protesters were “undermining their cause” during last year’s demonstrations.

New Yorker staff writer Gladwell gave a speech this weekend at the magazine’s festival, in which he discussed the difference between wrongfulness and harmfulness in context of last November’s sit-in.

He told the audience that he “did not buy” that students protesting were being harmed by Wilson’s historic presence on campus.

“I can think of lots of people in this world who are harmed by racism, I don’t think undergraduates at Princeton belong on that particular list,” he said.

Gladwell added he agrees Wilson’s name doesn’t deserve to be commemorated at Princeton’s International Relations School – he told the audience Wilson was a “blithering, bumbling idiot.”

But Gladwell emphasized how he doesn’t believe those campaigning were harmed by the Woodrow Wilson School.

He drew a distinction between wrong and harm, and said that an argument against Wilson would be better made based on wrong rather than harm.

His comments are quoted in part below:

“I had a podcast episode where I talked about the protests at Princeton over African American students who wanted to get Princeton to change the name of the Woodrow Wilson School because Woodrow Wilson was this unrepentant racist. Which he was, by the way. He was a seriously unpleasant man. And I think that they are 100 percent correct in saying there is no earthly reason why one of the premier graduate schools in the world should be named after a guy who was unspeakable. He was unspeakable!

“Why would you call your school of international affairs after someone who was terrible at international affairs! Not just a racist – completely incompetent.

“These students are members of a generation that lumps harm and wrong together. So when they want to make a claim about something being wrong, what do they do? They speak in terms of harm. So their arguments are largely, and not entirely, but largely in terms of harm. So they say: ‘That name harms me. I go and I see his picture on the wall, and I feel excluded. I hear people use that name and I think this is not a place that welcomes me.’ They use one harm argument after another.

“Now with all due respect to the protesters, who I agree with 100 percent, I don’t think that’s a good argument. I don’t think you can plausibly argue that if you are a student at Princeton University you are harmed by the name on the side of the school. These are kids who have 99.9 percent IQs, they are at one of the greatest schools in the world that is so wealthy it can pay for virtually all their expenses, they are getting an amazing education that is the envy of the entire world. I’m sorry, I don’t buy that they’re being harmed. I can think of lots of people in this world who are harmed by racism, I don’t think undergraduates at Princeton belong on that particular list.

“More to the point, they’re undermining their own cause. Now why is that? Because there’s a great argument to be made against Wilson. And that argument is the argument that naming a school after a guy like that is wrong. It doesn’t have to produce harm. It’s just wrong, right? It’s wrong for a modern university to celebrate a man as reprehensible as Woodrow Wilson.”

See the full video on the New Yorker.

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