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Cynthia Torres and Benedict Hooper
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: The Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) voted overwhelmingly on Monday to prohibit any recording of a broad category of campus activities without the permission of all participants, with few exceptions.
“Princeton prohibits the installation or use of any device for listening, observing, photographing, recording, amplifying, transmitting or broadcasting sounds or events occurring in any place where the individual or group involved has a reasonable expectation of being free from unwanted surveillance, eavesdropping, recording or observation without the knowledge and consent of all participants subject to such recordings,” the policy reads.
It’s not often that an “F” on an essay draws national headlines. But I guess that’s this week’s fixation.
When students assume that grading is ideologically motivated and in bad faith — and when they choose to take these concerns straight to reactionary publications that have it out for higher education instead of engaging in productive dialogue with the members of the University community — our ability to have academically fulfilling conversations begins to slip away.
In a recent Opinion piece, Contributing Opinion Writer Vitalia Spatola takes on one of the more important questions Princeton students face: Whom should I date? I wholeheartedly agree your potential boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s values are of the utmost importance in making that decision. However, Spatola endorses a type of thinking harmful both to our romantic and non-romantic relationships, with deep consequences for civil discourse more broadly.
Two-thirds of grades awarded in Princeton undergraduate coursework in the 2024–25 academic year were A-plus, A, or A-, according to a Monday report distributed to faculty, a dramatic increase over the past decade.
Dean of the College Michael Gordin briefly discussed the report at Monday’s faculty meeting, expressing concerns about grade inflation and the allocation of A-plus grades. However, Gordin noted that grading is under the jurisdiction of departments.
Ron Coleman
November 17, 2025
This excerpt somewhat misses the lede, which is: “Additionally, the policy states that recording can also be prohibited at public meetings or events ‘when it has been explicitly stated that recording is not permitted.’”
Prohibiting the surreptitious recording of private conversations, gatherings and conduct is not the only policy a community can have, but it is certainly a reasonable one to choose. Prohibiting the recording of public meetings, however, seems to raise a very different set of issues, including potential abuses.