President’s Annual “State of the University” Letter 2024: Excellence, Inclusivity, and Free Speech

Annie Rupertus, Nikki Han, and Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Several pro-Palestine student organizations held sparsely attended demonstrations on campus on the days leading up to Monday, Oct. 7, which marks one year since Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

While most of this week’s actions occurred near Firestone, some University employees arriving to work Monday morning were greeted by pro-Palestine graffiti at the entrance to 22 Chambers St., where the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) is headquartered.

Raf Basas
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: However, even as Princeton has undertaken proactive efforts to improve equity among FLI students, its punitive aid-related policies contradict and complicate this history. As stated in Princeton’s financial aid terms, students who “repeat a semester for disciplinary reasons” are not “eligible for a Princeton University grant for the repeated portion of the term.”

Princeton has already indicated its willingness to arrest students for exercising their right to free speech. By withholding the financial aid of suspended students, Princeton disproportionately suppresses the free speech of low-income students.

Bill Hewitt ‘74
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: The Board of Trustees’ recent decision regarding the John Witherspoon statue merits both praise and criticism. Their refusal to remove or alter the statue is commendable. Dedicated by predecessor trustees in 2001 to honor Witherspoon, the statue should remain unchanged, regardless of artistic considerations. Recent scholarship has provided a more favorable historical understanding of Witherspoon’s relationship with slavery than was available in 2001, further justifying this decision.

Regrettably, the Trustees erred in delegating the fate of the Witherspoon statue to the Campus Art Steering Committee. Any alteration of the statue would constitute a damnatio memoriae of Witherspoon. An ominous portent in the Committee on Naming report is the troubling conflation of judgments about Witherspoon’s historical relation to slavery with those about the statue’s artistic merit.