Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Leela Hensler
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Tuesday, Nov. 19, Princeton students and faculty filled the lower level of McCosh 50 to hear Professor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who is the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Anoush Baghdassarian, who currently serves as a clerk on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, discuss the ICC’s role in securing justice for victims of genocide on a global scale. This scope includes conflicts which have been the focus of student activism, such as wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Raf Basas
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At Princeton, we often forget the sharp difference in income distributions between Princeton and the nation as a whole. The media spins a tale of great improvement: Though Princeton had once predominantly served America’s economic elite, it has done well in shedding the specter of affluence that has haunted it for centuries. After all, a whopping 65 percent of Princeton students receive some level of financial aid.

This is a persuasive narrative, but make no mistake: Princeton’s “economic diversity” is a myth. Although the numbers have improved since the 2017 article from The New York Times, just 30.8 percent of Princeton’s Class of 2026 is from the bottom 60 percent of U.S. households.

Siyeon Lee and Genevieve Shutt
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: A coalition of Princeton’s liberal and progressive organizations hosted a ‘Walkout For Our Futures’ last Friday, in response to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. Like many others, we were fearful, dejected, and most of all, angry — and understandably, sought to make this sentiment known. This anger, however, was expressed by some protestors in a manner that was not only unproductive but also incendiary.

What democratic, egalitarian, or progressive purpose is served by ascribing idiocy to all of Trump’s administration — or by fantasizing about its failure? When progressives reduce Trump and his administration to incendiary insults, often attacking their intelligence and capability, his largely working-class, non-college-educated followers likely translate those insults as their own.

Guest Contributors
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: This Thursday, Nov. 21, Tigers for Israel (TFI), B’Artzeinu, and Chabad of Princeton are hosting an event headlined by Islamophobic activist Mosab Hassan Yousef, an individual who uses his platform to spread incendiary rhetoric about Muslim people. As members of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives and allies, we wholeheartedly reject Yousef’s Islamophobia and condemn the decision to bring him to campus.

Abigail Rabieh
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Just from reading the ‘Prince,’ especially last spring, it would seem that the Israel-Hamas war was the foremost issue on college students’ minds.  This was far from the case — when the ‘Prince’ polled students on their top concerns prior to the 2024 presidential election, few voters — for Trump or for Harris — identified the war as a priority. Why then, did the ‘Prince’ act as if last spring’s encampment deserved a huge amount of time, resources, and words to cover?

Wynne Conger
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: “They may have the sense of entitlement,” Larry Leighton ’56 writes of young Princeton alumni who donate at rates far lower than their predecessors. “[T]here seems to be very little knowledge of the importance of philanthropy generally.” In recent years, many alumni have penned “giving pleas” of a similar vein, bemoaning the dying culture of annual giving. But is the reality truly as terrible as these alumni assume it to be?

Yet in recent years, younger alumni have demonstrated a marked decrease in charitable donations, and especially when compared to that of previous classes. Although there may be a manifold of reasons as to why, more and more students have reduced their giving out of concerns about whether the endowment’s investments continue to line up with their values, along with the underlying recognition that the University is no longer sustained on the backs of alumni contributions.