Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Julianna Lee
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At Princeton, there is a stereotype of the classic Trump voter: hateful, uneducated, racist, and transphobic. Sitting at an Ivy League institution where a pre-election poll found that 74 percent of eligible undergrads cast votes for Harris, it’s easy to think that people don’t vote for Trump unless there is something really messed up about the way they see the world — but Princeton’s favorable view of the Democrats is an outlier.

We shouldn’t dismiss Trump voters as hateful, uneducated, or misinformed; we should engage with them about where they are coming from and why they made the choice they did.

Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Following the Clio Hall sit-in that ended in 13 student arrests, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 sent a campus-wide email stating that the University was “exploring offering students arrested for protest-related offenses the option to participate in a ‘restorative justice’ process.”

However, according to an email chain obtained by The Daily Princetonian, this process quickly collapsed.

Hayk Yengibaryan and Justus Wilhoit
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In the early hours of Wednesday, Nov. 6, former President Donald Trump officially defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the 47th president of the United States. With Harris’s defeat, Princeton students are questioning where this leaves them and the future of America.

Despite a significant majority of Princetonians supporting Harris, the rest of the country experienced an overwhelming red shift. In a New York Times analysis, more than 90 percent of counties with complete voting results shifted toward the former president, indicating a trend of strengthened support for Trump in 2024 compared to 2020.

Bill Hewitt
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In her interview with Mother Jones, Ruha Benjamin, Princeton’s Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies and latest MacArthur Fellow, confirmed that the University is investigating her role in the April 29 Clio Hall protest. As someone who called upon the University to investigate faculty involvement in the Clio Hall takeover, I welcome this development.

Sena Chang, Christopher Bao, and Charlie Roth
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Throughout Election Day, The Daily Princetonian conducted exit interviews from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. as voters, including students and community members, left the polling locations. Almost all told the ‘Prince’ they voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris won in N.J. by approximately five points over former President Donald Trump.

Isaac Barsoum
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Trump’s second rise represents a dramatic and pointed failure of American institutions — with universities among them — to stand against fascism. And now, we are left to deal with the fallout.

In the coming days, we — as an institution and as individuals — must drastically rethink our role in American society. Get ready, Princeton: in a nation backsliding toward authoritarianism, universities like ours must stand as bastions of democracy. Silence in the face of fascism is not neutrality, it is acquiescence. So, what should we do? How do we become that bastion of democracy?