Fargo School Board votes to remove Woodrow Wilson name from high school

The board had been encouraged to change the name by community members for the past three years because of the former President's racist past.

FARGO, N.D. — The name Woodrow Wilson will be removed from the Fargo high school.

The decision was made by the school board and comes after years of being urged by community members to remove the former president’s name because of his racist past.

Those advocates say they feel the school board did not take the process seriously until racial tensions around the country were at a height this summer.

“It took the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain and so many others to get us here,” said name-change advocate Jim Shaw. “The name should have been gone years ago.”

As more people began attending meetings to ask for the change, the school board created a committee to address the issue.

The committee said their priority was coming up with a renaming policy; something that had not existed in the district before.

The policy included a community engagement process where the committee surveyed 253 people.

“38.7% opted to retain or keep the name Woodrow Wilson. We had 61.3% who opted to rescind or remove the name,” explained school board member, Nikkie Gullickson.

That promoted the committee to recommend to the board the name should be changed.

There was some doubt among committee members.

“Is this going to be a snowball effect where all of a sudden we are going to see people questioning Madison because he did nothing about slavery or who knows?” asked board member, David Paulson.

Ultimately, the board responded with unanimous approval.

Those who have continued to fight for the removal of the name were in attendance for the momentous decision.

“When we began this movement in June, we wanted change in our community to happen and I can finally say that that change has come,” said name-change advocate Faith Shields-Dixon.

“It is really satisfying to see the school board unanimously do the right thing and to make a strong statement against racism and for racial equality,” added Shaw.

The renaming process will begin immediately for the school board. The name change will take effect at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.