Donald Trump, FDR and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson problem: Here’s how we stop defending historical racism and move forward

After news broke last week that Erika Christakis, the Yale House Master whose terminally offensive email set off a wave of protests, decided to give up her teaching position, conservative columnists went wild. Christakis was characterized as a victim of the “free-speech surveillance state” she'd denounced back in 2012. Are you happy now? Christakis defenders goaded. I can only speak for myself, but no. Abandoning her teaching role while keeping her cushy and prestigious role as Associate House Master was the precise opposite of what I wanted from Christakis. The former was a narrowly tailored academic position. In the latter she is, and will continue to be, charged with defining the living experience of a broad swath of the student body. It is in this role that she failed, miserably. But what was, perhaps, the most telling was not the absurd suggestion that her voluntary resignation signaled the collapse of academic freedom successfully wrought by the p.c. police. It was, instead, a failure to characterize Christakis as lacking “resilience,” a charge that was happily levied at the students who'd taken offense at her words. That some are more inclined to demand “resilience” of our minority students than our white administrators is damning. For only the feelings of minorities are obstacles to be overcome, and only the feelings of white people are worth protection. “Resilience,” as so-called defenders of free speech would define it, amounts to sitting down and shutting up. In a society whose impulse is to shield white points of view from criticism while silencing minority ones, the ongoing protests demand a great deal of fortitude. It is a show of inner strength to declare one's feelings relevant in the face of national scorn and mockery. Some such protests revolve around renaming institutions whose namesakes were venomous racists: the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton and