Students protest Frist at Frist

Correction appended

For more than 12 hours yesterday, students on Frist North Lawn continuously read from the U.S. Constitution, "My Pet Goat" and other documents to protest recent actions by the man whose family funded the building before which they were standing.

The group was still reading as of 2 a.m. and planned to continue through the night.

The protest was a symbolic gesture against a rule change that would eliminate the Senate filibusters Democrats have used to block some of Bush's judicial nominees.

Sponsored by Senator Bill Frist '74, the rule change would decrease the number of votes required to end a filibuster from 60 to 51.

"We're here to say to George W. Bush, withdraw your radical nominees, and to Bill Frist, don't invoke your nuclear option which would cut off debate in the Senate and which would completely rupture the procedure for judicial nominees," said Asheesh Siddique '07, who helped organize the event.

"We believe we are in a unique position as Princeton students, given the connection between Princeton and Bill Frist to really make a statement here," Siddique added.

Only minutes after it began Tuesday morning, the event was interrupted by Public Safety. Frist Director of Facilities Craig Morris said he called Public Safety once he realized the students had not reserved the space for their demonstration.

Director of Public Safety Donald Reichling reported on the scene minutes later and told Joshua Weitz '97 that he and the other students present had to end the event.

"It is just a matter of enforcing 'Rights, Rules and Responsibilities.' The space was not reserved, if they had a reservation it wouldn't have been a problem," Reichling said.

Weitz claimed that the demonstration could not be legitimately stopped. "I tried to argue that a right, rules and responsibilities, protects freedom of speech for students on campus but they [the officers] said we needed a permit," he said.

Siddique said he chose to stage the event even though his group lacked permission.

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"We think the University rules governing protests are ridiculous," Siddique said. "This issue was too important not to be addressed in a timely manner. We wanted to stage a harmless filibuster of Frist to support over 200 years of Senatorial tradition."

Associate Director of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne said the interference by Public Safety stemmed from a misunderstanding about the nature of the event.

In general, the Office of Undergraduate Students requests five days notice before an on-campus event. But Dunne said the administration tries to accommodate events such as protests that need to be scheduled on a more rapid time frame.

"The University responds to protests differently from events that can be planned in advance. Initially, it wasn't clear that the event was a protest in response to any specific political event," Dunne said.

After speaking with students, Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan signed off on the event shortly after noon.

The event attracted crowds of students all day. At its peak, dozens of observers sat on the adjacent lawn and applauded and cheered for the speakers.

"The response has been truly phenomenal," Siddique said. "There's been a great outpouring of understanding, empathy for our cause and a feeling that what we're doing is really right."