Conservatives get diversity fund money

When the Princeton Tory and the College Republicans applied for lecture funding from the Bildner Fund for Diversity, they didn't think they had a shot to get it.

And Fleurette King, who runs that fund, never thought she would see their application in the first place.

After all, previous applicants for grants included groups like the Princeton Justice Project, Queer Graduate Caucus and Organization of Women Leaders — whose sorts of views the Tory has often accosted in its pages.

But last spring the Fund paid for the Tory, the Republicans and Whig-Clio to bring conservative columnist George Will GS '68 to Princeton to talk on the breakdown of the American family.

Both King and conservative leaders said they were pleasantly surprised by this twist of events.

"I think some people would have been curious," King said of the decision to fund the lecture, emphasizing that the fund doesn't have a preconceived agenda and instead only seeks to promote intergroup dialogue.

The Fund requires at least two diverse groups to apply for grants together. Initially, the Republicans and Tory applied alone — and were told to bring in a third sponsor which could represent alternative views.

After bringing Whig-Clio on board, the application was approved. Whig-Clio managed the money for the event.

The Fund is dedicated to "meaningful inquiry, interaction, and learning around ethnic, racial, religious and/or other differences," according to its website.

Both King — who is also the coordinator of Dialogue@Princeton, a program related to the Fund — and conservative leaders on campus see the partnership they ultimately forged as appropriate expressions of their goals.

But others see the actions of the conservatives as inconsistent with their own views.

"I think the Tory is hypocritical in that sense," Leslie-Bernard Joseph '06, president of the Black Student Union, said.

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"They think it's O.K. to support diversity of opinion when they're the voice [being supported]," he said. "But when it comes to supporting racial diversity, they don't seem to be in favor of that."

Joseph said he wouldn't generally think the Tory would favor a special fund designed to encourage racial and religious diversity.

Conservatives acknowledge they support diversity measures, but in their own way.

According to Evan Baehr '05, president of the College Republicans and former editor-in-chief of the Tory, conservative thinking does support diversity, but perhaps not in the same way that others perceive it.

Diversity efforts should focus on bringing about an exchange of ideas and giving time to opinions that are not normally heard, he said.

"Diversity simply for the sake of diversity is shortsighted," said Ira Leeds '06, publisher of the Tory.

Programs that seek to help particular minorities groups simply because of their underrepresented status may even be seen as racist, and moreover may belittle the very people they are trying to help, he said.

However, he said he did not feel belittled by receiving this funding and that with the money they received, the groups were able to positively expand the political discussion on campus, which is one of the goals of the University.

Despite their satisfaction with the results of the lecture, Leeds said the Tory would not likely seek funding from the Bildner Fund either this year or in the future because the application process is too time consuming.