Free Speech at Princeton University

Miriam Waldvogel and Isabella Dail
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The 13 students who have only consumed water since Friday, May 3 have ended their hunger strike, Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) announced on social media around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 12. Seven other students have since begun hunger strikes in their place.

Organizers have repeatedly cited the strikes as a source of leverage amidst negotiations over demands with the University, which reportedly broke down at the end of last week.

Elisabeth Stewart
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Following a petition by six faculty members in late April, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has called a special meeting of the faculty for 4:30 p.m. on Monday, May 20.

The proposal — drafted by Molly Greene GS ’93, Ruha Benjamin, Dan-El Padilla Peralta ’06, Lidal Dror, V. Mitch McEwen, and Curtis Deutsch — asks the faculty to consider “the granting of amnesty to students and other university affiliates involved in peaceful free speech and assembly for justice in Palestine,” including the encampment, sit-in, and hunger strike. As of the hunger strike's ninth day, thirteen of the original participants have broken their strike, replaced by seven new strikers. The meeting agenda will include only one proposal regarding student discipline and free speech.

Keith E. Whittington
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Imagine, if you will, that a relatively small, but passionate and loud — complete with drums, chants, and megaphones — group of Princeton students thought that SPIA should be renamed the Donald J. Trump School of Public and International Affairs and launch new initiatives focused on American greatness. After pressing their demands for many months to no effect, they decide that more direct action would be needed to bring attention to their cause. They march through the hallways of Robertson Hall, take an office, yell out of windows, and drop “Make America Great Again” flags through them, and announce that they will occupy the office until their demands are met.

Isabel Keane
New York Post

Excerpt: An anti-Israel protester at Princeton University sounded off about how she was “starving” during a self-imposed hunger strike and accused the prestigious university of purposefully “physically weakening” students.

Aaron Sibarium
The Free Beacon

Excerpt: Yale University spent more than a year investigating a Jewish professor for six words of an op-ed he published in a pro-Israel newspaper, raising questions about the school’s approach to anti-Semitism and free speech as the campus continues to cope with the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war.

Francesca Block, '22
The Free Press

Excerpt: Yesterday, The Free Press published an exclusive interview with Mario Torres, a facilities worker at Columbia who was photographed fighting off a pro-Palestinian protester as a mob invaded Hamilton Hall on April 30. A GoFundMe raising money for Torres’s potential legal fees surpassed the target of $18,000 in hours. The total has since reached more than $30,000.
Now, two of Torres’s colleagues, Lester Wilson and Jesse Wynne, who were also working in the building with him that night, tell The Free Press they feel betrayed not only by the university—which their union is now suing on their behalf—but by the student protesters who put them in harm’s way. Here’s Francesca Block with the story. . .