Campus Events & Enforcement

Campus Reform
Patrick McDonald

Excerpt: Princeton University, Yale University, and Duke University have each been threatened with lawsuits for allegedly not complying with recent Supreme Court precedent banning race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

Robert P. George
New York Times

Excerpt: 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.

My advice to students who fear that they will be subjected to discrimination and double standards is this: Don’t hide and don’t be silent. Exercise and, if necessary, defend your right to think for yourself and to dissent from campus orthodoxies. But even as you push back against ideological bias and discrimination, remember that as a university student you are one of the luckiest — most privileged — people on the planet. So do not think of yourself as a victim.

Alex Norbrook and Alan Plotz
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Princeton rolled out a new protest website two weeks ago, expanding their “time, place, and manner” restrictions to more times, more places, and more manners. By placing explicit bans on some of the most common forms of political demonstration, tightening language on obscure and inconsistently-applied existing restrictions, and departing from a constructive approach of speaking with protestors, the policies intend to stoke fear and chill protest.

We, the undersigned member organizations of the Princeton Progressive Coalition, oppose these tightened restrictions, reject the University’s hostile approach to protest, and call on all who support free speech and free expression to challenge these protest bans.

Eleanor Clemans-Cope
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In a recent feature in The Atlantic, Princeton Lecturer Lauren Wright charges that conservative students on elite liberal college campuses like Princeton’s are constantly challenged and thus better prepared for real-world discourse, while liberal students are coddled and unwilling to engage. She backs this up with interviews from 43 college students — 28 conservatives and 15 liberals at “competitive schools.” But her framing reflects a misunderstanding of what truly constitutes meaningful intellectual and community dialogue on campus. I should know — I was one of her interviewees.

Wright misunderstands a critical aspect of campus dialogue. Liberals do interact with opinions that challenge their own, but they do so on issues that are typically grounded in productive, forward-looking dialogue, like criminal legal system reform, geo-engineered climate solutions, diplomatic engagement between the United States and China, and the morality of consulting jobs.

Jorge Reyes
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: As Gaza solidarity encampments sprung up across university campuses last spring, students faced severe institutional repercussions for their activism. At Princeton, at least two students had their diplomas withheld and 15 were arrested. Across the country, over 3,000 students were arrested for participation in Gaza solidarity protests.

For some, these consequences are disproportionately dire. Undocumented and international students run the risk of being deported if arrested and are limited in their ability to protest, especially with politicians like Donald Trump threatening to infringe on their freedom of assembly.

Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The 15 students and University community members arrested during pro-Palestine protests last spring will not have their cases dismissed following a hearing on Tuesday.

Aymen Aboushi, an attorney representing the 12 students and one postdoc arrested for occupying Clio Hall, motioned to dismiss the charges of defiant trespassing, which Judge John McCarthy III ’69 ultimately rejected to hear. Citing body camera footage, he argued that the students at Clio Hall did not receive notice from the officers who arrested them that they were trespassing. Under New Jersey law, defiant trespassing occurs when someone enters a space after “knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so.”