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Sasha Malena Johnson
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Donning “Butler Bee” antennae, I joined the many students fighting for camera attention as I waited for Opening Exercises to begin. After a long orientation, I was excited to take part in a seemingly monumental and ancient rite of passage at Princeton. What I did not expect was the level of religiosity.
While Princeton was founded by Presbyterian pastors, it has always been a secular institution — a legacy best upheld by secular Opening Exercises. According to the most recent Frosh Survey from The Daily Princetonian, around 45 percent of the Class of 2028 identifies as agnostic or atheist. In consideration of the significant numbers of Princeton students who do not identify as religious, the University should move towards secular Opening Exercises.
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Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, top colleges and universities have faced an onslaught of federal attacks: slashing grant money for research, pressuring schools to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, cracking down on visas for international students, and ending graduate program sponsorship for active duty military at top schools. However, some Ivy League universities — the center of many of Trump’s ongoing attacks — have decreased messaging on the potential consequences of these federal directives.
“One thing that’s been clear is that a lot of universities have felt that publicity would bring no advantage or do them no good,” history professor David Bell GS ’91, who has been outspoken about federal actions against universities, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
As a professor who is known to dissent from progressive ideologies that are dominant at universities such as Princeton, where I’ve taught for nearly 40 years, I’m frequently asked by students for advice about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them. Some are pro-Israel, or politically and socially conservative, or religiously observant.
They fear being treated unfairly by faculty members who are hostile to their beliefs. Many are afraid of being regarded as outcasts by their more liberal or progressive peers. They worry about being excluded from academic opportunities or not treated equitably in social or other extracurricular activities. To these students I say, with regret: You’re right to worry. I’ve seen these things happen.
Universities may be tempted to treat these capabilities as inevitable improvements in education. Students will be able to consume vast amounts of information, more than ever before. But like AI writing itself, such consumption would be vast but shallow. The more interesting possibility, then, is that AI will force universities to rediscover the value of intellectual work that cannot be outsourced.
