Gratitude Is What’s Missing in the Ivy League

May 23, 2024 4 min read

1 Comment

PFS original content
Khoa Sands ‘26

Excerpt: Last week, The New York Times published an article Why Antiwar Protests Haven’t Flared Up at Black Colleges Like Morehouse. As President Biden prepared to give the commencement address at Morehouse, students remained sharply divided about his presence on campus. Like many colleges in the country, students are angry about the ongoing Israel–Hamas War in Gaza, and the role of the United States in supporting Israel. However, as The New York Times reports,

           While anger over the war remains palpable at Morehouse and other           
           historically Black colleges and universities, these campuses have
           been largely free of turmoil, and tensions are far less evident: no
           encampments, few loud protests, and little sign of Palestinian flags
           flying from dorm windows.

It is well-reported that Biden’s support of Israel has endangered the once-strong alliance between the African American community and the Democratic Party. Given these national tensions, one might expect Morehouse and other HBCUs to be hotbeds of pro-Palestinian activism – but this is not the case. Why?

According to Walter Kimbrough, a former president of Dillard University (another HBCU) quoted by the Times, “Your student body at Columbia is very different than the student body at, say, Dillard. It doesn’t mean that people aren’t concerned. But they understand that they have some different kinds of stakes.”

Cedric Richmond, a Morehouse graduate and DNC senior advisor remarked that “The Morehouse College graduation, at least as I remember it, is a very solemn event. You have almost 500 African American males walking across that stage, whose parents and grandparents sacrificed and those students worked their butts off to, one, get into Morehouse, and two, to graduate. That’s a very significant day. And I’m just not sure whether students or protesters are going to interfere with that solemn moment.”

The relationship between students and the institution is thought of differently at Morehouse than at the Ivy League colleges, including Princeton. In The New York Times’s report, many students and university affiliates felt a sense of respect towards the institution and themselves for overcoming personal and social barriers to graduate, many of them the first in their families to do so.

Princeton and peer institutions, on the other hand, tend to enroll a high percentage of students with parents who have graduated from elite institutions. Most students are from the upper middle class or upper class. And attending and graduating from an elite college, for many, is conceived of as an expectation rather than a privilege. Might this impact the different attitudes towards protest against the university?

When attending and graduating from an elite university is conceived of as a deserved right, gratitude and responsibility are lost. The university must accede to the demands of the students, simply because being a student at the university is thought of as an innate right. What is missing in the Ivy League is a sense of responsibility. Being a student carries with it a responsibility towards the institution and one's family and supporters. No one has a right to be accepted to a school like Princeton. Studying at Princeton is a privilege granted to a very select few. As students, we should approach our studies and the immense resources and opportunities we are granted with an attitude of gratitude for this privilege. Likewise, no student does it alone. We are all supported by a large network of family, friends, teachers, coaches, and other supporters who got us to where we are today.

The right to free speech is inalienable and must be protected. But we must reflect on why we place such importance on the right to free speech in the first place. In the public sphere, free speech is essential to democratic self-governance – citizens of a free society must be able to express themselves on issues that affect them. While this is also true in the academy, academic free speech has another purpose in the university: the pursuit of truth. In order to preserve and protect the truth-seeking mission of the university, scholars must be able to freely express themselves. However, as Princeton’s own code of conduct notes, rights imply responsibilities. Citizens of a democratic republic enjoy the rights of freedom and are tasked with the responsibility to uphold the republic through virtuous self-governance. Likewise, students of a university enjoy the rights of free speech and are tasked with the responsibility to pursue truth and knowledge. While the right of academic freedom extends to protest, students must strive to act in accordance with their responsibility as students which follows from the guarantee of that right.

To whom much is given, much is expected. As Princeton students, we have been given a great privilege thanks to the help of many supporters. We are here for a reason and have been given much for a reason – to pursue knowledge and truth. The rights and privileges we enjoy come with responsibilities to ourselves, our families and supporters, and to the university. How then, should students approach their time at Princeton? Gratitude is a good place to start.

Khoa Sands ‘26, a PFS Writing Fellow, is the President of the Senate of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society and a Vice President of the Princeton Human Values Forum.


1 Response

John Harbold
John Harbold

May 27, 2024

Great insight and completely on point. Gratitude is essential to goodness!
Bless you and keep defending Truth!
Best,
John
Class of 1977

Leave a comment


Also in Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Princeton Faces 21 Percent Tax on its Endowment Income

May 15, 2025 4 min read 9 Comments

Princetonians for Free Speech

Since the beginning of the year, Princetonians for Free Speech has been warning that Princeton and other universities were likely to be hit with a big increase in the current 1.4 % tax on endowment income. Now it is happening.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, the House Ways & Means Committee voted to report out its part of the Reconciliation bill – a.k.a. the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This massive bill contains numerous tax provisions, including a large increase in the tax rate, now 1.4%, on endowment income. The bill creates a tiered tax rate based on an institution’s “student-adjusted” endowment. There are four rates: 1.4%, 7%, 14%, and 21%. The 21% rate applies to schools with an endowment of at least $2 million per student. It is the same as the corporate tax rate. Princeton qualifies for the 21%. According to one article, others qualifying for the highest rate are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT. Here is a list of the largest endowments. Princeton is listed at $34 billion. Note that Texas, which has a large endowment, is not covered by the endowment tax because it is a public university.

Read More
As endowment tax looms, Princeton asks departments to make plans for ‘permanent’ budget cuts, warns of potential layoffs

May 13, 2025 1 min read

Christopher Bao and Annie Rupertus 
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Princeton asked all departments and University units to prepare “separate plans for 5 percent and 10 percent permanent budget cuts to be phased in over the next three years, with some actions to start later this summer” in an email sent to faculty and staff on Monday afternoon — the University’s most dramatic budgetary guidance yet following a tumultuous semester for higher education.

The email, sent by Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, explicitly acknowledged the potential for layoffs to be part of budget reductions. “Cuts of this magnitude to our budget cannot be achieved without changes to some operations and the associated elimination of some staff positions,” they wrote.

Read More
New Campaign Calls on Alumni to ‘Stand Up’ for Princeton, Higher Ed

May 09, 2025 1 min read 4 Comments

David Montgomery ‘83
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: For the first time in memory, Princeton is inviting alumni, faculty, students, and allies to lend their voices to a broad campaign of political advocacy and public affirmation in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on research funding and academic freedom in American higher education. “To my knowledge, this is a new kind of initiative for the University,” President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 told PAW in an early May interview about the campaign, which is called “Stand Up for Princeton and Higher Education.”

Read More