This story was updated June 30 at 1:57 p.m.

More than 18,000 people have signed an online petition urging D.C. Public Schools to rename Woodrow Wilson High School because of the former president’s advocacy of segregationist policies. On Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she supports the name change, albeit with some hesitation.

“It should be changed, and I say that reluctantly only for one reason, and that’s because we have been through this discussion with high schools and how people feel about their alma mater and attaching a lot of significance to their alma mater,” Bowser said at a press conference. “We have come in this time to an important moment where people are shedding that attachment.”

“We know the legacy of President Wilson. I think that it has been appropriately disavowed. It’s particularly impactful here in the District, the seat of the federal government,” Bowser added. “There may be a larger discussion to have, and I think it is appropriate to do it in an orderly way and to do it together.”

The D.C. History and Justice Collective published the petition in early 2019 in tandem with a public forum held at the school to discuss a potential name change. Tim Hannapel is a Wilson alum and co-founder of the collective. He said petition signatures have taken off in the past month as protests against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd have increased public scrutiny of building names, monuments, and other symbols that show implicit support for white supremacists in the nation’s history.

“We have had in place the infrastructure for this to take off now, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and [growth of] Black Lives Matter,” he said. “We’re at an inflection point, a reckoning with history. And people are really interested and wanting to know how we got here. And a lot of how we got here is Woodrow Wilson.”

The effort has also gained steam in recent days after Princeton University leadership voted to remove Wilson’s name from its public policy school.

Hannapel said he and supporters met with D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson and D.C. Councilmembers Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and David Grosso (I-At-Large) last year to discuss the name change, asking them to pass a resolution telling the school system to move forward with a renaming. The coalition began working with D.C. Public Schools last fall, Hannapel said, but added that the school system halted discussions in February to reevaluate its name-change policy.

“DCPS has heard from community members about the desire to change the name of Wilson High School and continues to communicate with the leaders of this effort around their request,” D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said in an emailed statement. “The mayor is formulating a working group to explore a District-wide renaming policy. DCPS looks forward to working with the community on any proposed school name change once our school renaming policy is revised.”

Hannapel said he was unaware of plans to make a working group.

“The times now call for our elected leaders to take a clear moral stand, rather than depending on a bureaucracy that so far has only kicked the can down the road,” Hannapel said in an email. “How can it be possible that D.C. needs a ‘working group’ to decide whether a public educational institution should continue to carry the name of one of the chief architects of white supremacy?”

Last week, 10 members of the D.C. State Board of Education sent a letter to Ferebee, CC’d to D.C. Council members, urging speedy action on a name change for Wilson High.

“Whatever one might think of Wilson’s efforts in international affairs or on other matters, as president, his role in Washington DC was ugly and civically corrosive—he worked systematically to demote and segregate DC’s African-American civil servants, who had previously built a thriving middle-class community,” the letter states. “It is time to change the name.”

A representative for Cheh sent a statement to DCist Monday saying the councilmember has signed the petition.

“No one is entitled to have a building named after him or her. It should be an honor. And if there are significant dishonorable aspects in a person’s past, that person is not entitled to be so honored,” the statement reads. “President Wilson’s segregationist legacy and abhorrent attitude towards African Americans are undeniable. If the Wilson High School community is interested in changing the name of the school, then I support them.”

Mendelson’s office said in an email to DCist/WAMU that the Council member will “listen to the Wilson community” once DCPS finishes its process regarding a name change. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Grosso said he “fully supports” the name change and that a community process is needed to select a new name.

Wilson High, founded in 1935, is the city’s largest high school. Black students comprise more than 30% of the nearly 1,800 students at the school. Discussions to change its name go back at least two decades, said Wilson social studies teacher Michele Bollinger. She and other faculty circulated a petition advocating a name change during the 2014-15 school year.

Bollinger said the urgency to change the school’s name has waxed and waned over the years, but has always remained an issue.

“No one can really act like fundamental parts of the Wilson community have not tried to make the case for changing the name,” she said. “It’s always been a discussion at Wilson, and it’s one that for some reason city officials ignore, and act like it’s an abstract or secondary concept. And I think the movement right now is showing us all how symbols matter and they speak volumes.”

More than 75 Wilson High students, teachers and alums gathered Friday in support of the name change at a sit-in at Fort Reno, the onetime home to a mostly African-American community that was largely demolished nearly a century ago. In addition to the name change, rally organizers want the school to broaden its curriculum with classes on Black history and liberation as well as defunding the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to better fund community programs and education. The coalition is also calling for the removal of police offers from D.C. public schools as well as D.C. public charter schools.

While Woodrow Wilson has “always been racist,” the name change may have a greater sense of urgency now, says recently graduated senior Alik Schier.

“Our political climate has been flipped upside down these past four years, and the world we knew when we started high school is no longer the world we live in today,” Schier wrote in an email to DCist. “Systemic racism hasn’t gotten worse; it’s only become more visible. And that’s why I think now is the time to enact some real change.”

Wilson’s legacy is rampant with racism and support for white supremacy, including re-segregating the civil service. On Friday, the board of trustees at Princeton—which Wilson led as president for about eight years—voted to remove Wilson’s name from its public policy school. The move followed similar decisions that other New Jersey schools have made in recent weeks.

Through his actions and opinions, Wilson “embedded segregation and white supremacy” in the federal government and in U.S. culture, Hannapel said.

“As James Baldwin says, we have to reject the lies of history as a precondition to eradicating systemic racism,” he said. “Part of that begins with looking at our monuments and who we venerate.”

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted his disdain for the Princeton decision, asking, “Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center?”

Hannapel said he’s surprised Trump “has time to tweet” about the former U.S. president.

“The president says we’re erasing history. We’re not erasing history—we’re teaching history,” he said.

Wilson High is one of many schools in the region whose name increasingly has become a flashpoint for anger at and frustration with systemic inequities for Black residents. On Monday night, the Prince William County School Board voted to rename two schools named for Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Dozens took part in a virtual rally held Sunday over changing the name of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, a supporter of segregation. Last week, the Fairfax County School Board voted to rename Robert E. Lee High School. Efforts have also begun at a school in Montgomery County. And last year, the Arlington County School Board voted to change the name of Washington-Lee High School to Washington-Liberty High School.

In Bollinger’s semester-long D.C. history course, she asks students to research local historical figures and propose people to celebrate with the school name. Suggestions over the years have included Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, NAACP co-founder Archibald Grimke, and graffiti artist Cool “Disco” Dan.

Bollinger said that as a first step, DCPS needs to commit to changing the name of the school and make a statement directed toward students.

“And don’t forget not just Black students and students of color, but white students, too, who learn that it’s OK to be complacent about racism because we’re going to go ahead and honor racist people,” she said.

This story has been updated with comments from Hannapel and city leaders, as well as additional information about Prince William Schools and the Wilson High sit-in.