Champion of Hypocrisy: Why Woodrow Wilson’s Reputation Deserves Its Rapid Fall

 

Wilson, the Democrat president, supported democracy for Europe but held African Americans and women back in his own country—his hypocrisy is why his reputation is rightfully plummeting today.

Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th president and one-time hero of internationalism, might need to be renamed the "Great Divider." His reputation, once that of a visionary leader who championed democracy on a global scale, has taken a hard hit, and for good reason. It seems the ideals he pushed for the world somehow got left behind at America's own doorstep. Wilson’s fall from grace has been particularly swift in recent years, and at the heart of it is an ugly truth—his steadfast racism and his disdain for women’s suffrage.

Wilson, a Democrat, governed from 1913 to 1921, and while history books often praise him for his work in creating the League of Nations and establishing the Federal Reserve, they tend to gloss over his blatant hostility towards granting equal rights to African Americans and women. He was the first Southern president since the Civil War, and he came into office with a mindset deeply rooted in the segregationist sentiments of the Jim Crow South. His cabinet appointments reflected this: white supremacists who quickly went about the business of resegregating the federal workforce, setting progress back by decades. Wilson didn’t just stumble into racism—he actively cultivated it, ensuring that African Americans remained in positions of subordination, and justifying segregation as a means to maintain "harmony."

His hostility towards suffrage wasn’t any less palpable. Wilson treated women fighting for their right to vote with thinly veiled contempt. In 1913, suffrage activists had their first meeting with the president, which he ended abruptly after a mere ten minutes. A year later, he stormed out of another meeting, incensed by the audacity of women questioning him. Even in his earlier years as a professor at Bryn Mawr, a women's college, Wilson saw teaching women as something of a waste—likening it to lecturing stonemasons on the evolution of fashion. Such words give insight into his deeply paternalistic and condescending views on women's place in society. For Wilson, the very notion of women's suffrage was a disruption of the "natural order."

It wasn't until late in his presidency, in 1918, that Wilson reluctantly threw his support behind what would become the 19th Amendment. But it wasn’t a noble change of heart that swayed him—he was politically cornered. The suffrage movement was gaining steam, and America’s international reputation was at stake. How could a president advocate for democracy abroad while denying half his country’s population a voice? Wilson’s endorsement was tepid, to say the least, and when the amendment finally passed, he had the gall to write to a colleague claiming that women owed their voting rights largely to him. It was a stunning act of revisionism, given his years of staunch opposition.

Wilson’s legacy also took another blow when one examines his treatment of civil liberties during his time in office. Suffrage demonstrators who dared to take their cause to the streets often found themselves facing mobs—sometimes with the tacit approval of police. Newspapers loyal to Wilson called for a clampdown on free speech during wartime, and judges handed down lengthy sentences for the ambiguous crime of "obstructing traffic." Wilson might not have directly ordered these crackdowns, but he certainly didn't stand in the way either. As commander-in-chief, his silence was complicity, and it painted a clear picture of where he stood on the rights of those he considered beneath him.

It’s no wonder that Princeton University chose in 2020 to remove Wilson’s name from its public-affairs school, or that Washington, D.C.'s largest high school followed suit in 2022. The man who was once celebrated as an enlightened leader has now been unmasked as a regressive figure who held America back from realizing its true democratic potential. Wilson may have helped craft international institutions, but he failed spectacularly at practicing equality at home.

The current reassessment of Wilson is long overdue, and it speaks volumes about the shifting values of our society. No longer is it enough to praise a president for his economic or foreign policies while ignoring his moral failures. It is this shift that has led historians, once captivated by his lofty rhetoric about democracy, to downgrade him in presidential rankings. His standing, once just below Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt, now lies much closer to the bottom, marred by the realities of his exclusionary politics.

Wilson’s enduring racism was more than a personal flaw—it was public policy. He barred African Americans from advancing in government jobs, with some even losing positions they had previously held. His vision of America was a segregated one, and he was willing to wield the power of the presidency to ensure it stayed that way. It’s an inconvenient truth for those who would prefer to see Wilson solely as a global advocate for democracy. While he spoke of self-determination for oppressed peoples abroad, he showed no such inclination for the oppressed within his own borders.

A telling anecdote involves Wilson’s screening of "The Birth of a Nation" at the White House in 1915. The film, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, was heralded by Wilson, who reportedly called it "like writing history with lightning." That Wilson, the supposed advocate for democracy, chose to endorse such a vile portrayal of African Americans speaks volumes. It was no mere slip-up—it was a clear endorsement of the very ideology that sought to keep Black Americans as second-class citizens.

Perhaps Wilson’s most glaring contradiction lies in his push for democracy abroad while denying it at home. As he urged Europe to embrace the idea of national self-determination after World War I, he failed to acknowledge the hypocrisy of his own actions in America. Wilson’s rhetoric of "making the world safe for democracy" was powerful enough to earn him the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, yet hollow when juxtaposed with his domestic policies. His reluctance to back the women’s suffrage movement until politically expedient, coupled with his efforts to disenfranchise African Americans, paints the portrait of a leader far less interested in true democracy than in maintaining control.

Wilson’s supporters might argue that he was simply a man of his time, but that excuse only goes so far. There were plenty of voices—women like Alice Paul and African American leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois—calling for equality, and Wilson chose to ignore them. He had opportunities to be on the right side of history and chose otherwise, not out of ignorance, but out of conviction.

The decline in Wilson’s reputation is not a result of "woke" revisionism, as some might suggest, but a reckoning with the full breadth of his actions and beliefs. The romanticized version of Wilson, the principled statesman fighting for democracy, has given way to a more nuanced and, frankly, more accurate portrayal of a man who was deeply flawed. His international achievements, though notable, cannot overshadow the harm he inflicted on those seeking equality in America.

It’s ironic that Wilson, who fancied himself a beacon of democracy, has now been largely cast aside as a relic of an intolerant past. His legacy, once securely anchored among the giants of American history, is now adrift, weighed down by his glaring failures in the realms of race and gender. Wilson may have championed the League of Nations, but his reluctance to lead his own nation towards equality is a stain that no amount of rhetoric can wash away.

If history teaches us anything, it's that legacies built on exclusion are bound to crumble. And as we reconsider Woodrow Wilson's place in the pantheon of American presidents, perhaps it's fitting that the man who so often closed doors to progress is now finding them closed to his own memory.