In decidedly peaceful encore, Singer protestors meet with Wright

Pushing baby carriages and holding the hands of shy toddlers, about 30 members of United Parents Protesting Singer and Not Dead Yet gathered outside FitzRandolph Gate on Saturday to demand that the University rescind its appointment of bioethicist Peter Singer.

If the University refuses, organizers threatened to instigate a nationwide boycott of companies with ties to University trustees, including The Gap and Avon.

The protesters took pains to distinguish themselves from previous demonstrators who drew comparisons between Singer and Hitler and chained themselves to University buildings.

The predominantly female organizers stood outside University grounds peacefully from 11 a.m. until a meeting at noon with University Vice President and Secretary Thomas Wright '62. As Public Safety officers hovered around Nassau Hall, protesters handed out pamphlets and displayed letters from Steve Forbes '70 and other Singer detractors. They introduced passersby to their disabled children — many with Down's syndrome — who wandered through the crowd.

"He's not Hitler," said Mary Wilt, who said she has read "Practical Ethics," one of Singer's most famous books. "But he's the person who taught Hitler that it was OK to do what he did. I have nothing against Singer personally — and I know he has other issues, like animal rights. But academic freedom stops when you advocate that killing some citizens — and that's what infants are — is OK."

"If he said that about a minority group — that African Americans in the inner-city should be killed because they would be poor and have a harder life — people would be outraged," Wilt added.

During his short meeting with the protesters in Maclean House, Wright accepted several petitions and letters from small children accompanying the group leaders. "Obviously these people believe very strongly, and we respect their point of view even if we disagree with it," Wright said after the meeting.

University spokesman Justin Harmon '78 challenged the idea that exposure to Singer's views on disabled infants would inappropriately influence University students.

"A faculty member doesn't come to Princeton to promulgate a single point of view," he said. "Professor Singer encourages his students to grapple with his point of view in the context of other points of view. This isn't brainwashing."