Letter to the Editor: Why is the ‘Prince’ so negative?
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a letter to the editor to the Opinion Section, click here.
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The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a letter to the editor to the Opinion Section, click here.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
“Princeton in the Nation's Service” is more than a motto. It is a sacred and honored vow of our University community to use our skills and resources to serve our country and humanity. As alumni, we are honored by those of us who have taken this vow to heart and contributed so much to our country. This, above all else, is what makes us the proudest for having attended Princeton: to know that so many of our own have worked to make our neighborhoods, our country, and our world a better place.
To the editor:
I’m so grateful for the generous support I’ve received over the past weeks in my Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Presidential campaign. No matter the outcome, your acts of kindness, from checking in with me to telling others about my campaign, have meant the world.
For those of us taking our coursework remotely, this fall break likely came and went, noticeable only as a two-day reprieve from classes and a moment’s peace from cramming for midterms. But for the 300-ish undergraduate and 1,000-ish graduate students still holding down the Orange Fort, fall break was a gentle reminder that leaving the University is possible, but that doing so comes with a certain element of risk.
In recent months we have seen, over and over, Black and brown people subjected to terrible treatment by police officers — too often dying at the hands of those tasked with protecting our communities. And too many police departments are solely focused on enforcement actions such as traffic stops, stop-and-frisk, drug arrests, and violent responses to peaceful protesters. All of this goes against what I believe as a public safety professional.
COVID-19 is a global crisis, but make no mistake: despite what government officials, business leaders, and University administrators would like you to believe, we are not “all in this together.” Instead, these powerful groups have aligned themselves against working people, students, and minorities by forcing them to bear the combined weight of a pandemic, mass unemployment, and racist violence at the hands of the police.
In late June, the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) published a letter that asked the University to reaffirm its commitment to upholding freedom of speech and thought. Since its release, we have been met with a deluge of dissent that misrepresents the arguments expressed in the letter.
As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to spark debate and action across the country, Princeton’s administration has been playing on both sides of the issue with its recent announcements and public messages to students. About a month ago, the University removed Woodrow Wilson’s name from the School of Public and International Affairs, with President Eisgruber stating in a letter to all students, “Princeton is part of an America that has too often disregarded, ignored, or excused racism, allowing the persistence of systems that discriminate against Black people.”
Editor’s Note: This piece includes descriptions of disordered eating and sexual misconduct that some readers may find distressing.
In a recent open letter, many Princeton faculty members call on the University to acknowledge the inadequacy of our efforts toward anti-racism up to now, and to do much more going forward. I agree with the overall message of this historic and important letter. I am grateful to see so many of my colleagues make this demand. But the letter also calls for the formation of a committee of faculty members who would investigate and punish racist research. I cannot support this call.
One month ago, President Eisgruber ’83 circulated a message to the University community calling on all of us “reflect on our place in the world and challenge ourselves to identify additional steps we can take to fight racism.” Recognizing the massive, ongoing protests for racial justice in the US, the message firmly committed Princeton to our nation’s urgent, overdue reckoning with its racist history and “the ongoing reality of oppression and violence against Black Americans.”
When historians look back on 2020, they will undoubtedly see it as a year of great strife and important change. America’s national reckoning with racism, carried out amidst a deadly and still unfolding pandemic, has uncovered long simmering tensions and persistent injustices throughout the country.
Note: this statement was delivered to Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber, along with Provost Deborah Prentice and Dean of the Faculty Sanjeev Kulkarni, on July 16, 2020. It was acknowledged in a personal email by President Eisgruber on July 17.
We, the undersigned students and alumni of the Princeton Department of Classics and Program in Linguistics, unequivocally denounce “A Declaration of Independence by a Princeton Professor,” written by professor of classics Joshua T. Katz. We condemn its demonization of student organizers, its belittlement of faculty members in their support of anti-racism, and its flippant dismissal of efforts to combat systemic racism at Princeton while minimizing the very presence of that racism itself.