It may be time to put to rest our expectation that the officers of Princeton University show moral leadership in how they conduct the financial affairs of this institution. To continue to hope for something better would be to pretend that our professed values about civic responsibility are something more than rhetorical tropes trotted out at Opening Exercises and Baccalaureate, which they demonstrably are not.
In their refusal to grant cost-of-living wage increases to campus workers, their passive approach to the monitoring of labor conditions in factories where Princeton apparel is produced and the endless foot-dragging on reducing overall campus CO2 emissions, we detect a pattern of disregard for civic responsibility which borders on the pathological.
The latest disappointment came when, in a county experiencing arguably the most severe housing crisis for working families in the country, the University used its influence to evade much of its state-mandated obligation to build affordable housing.
A synopsis of the tragic spectacle: The New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) requires each municipality in the state to provide affordable housing in proportion to new residential and commercial construction. After intensive lobbying by the University over the course of the past two years, COAH dramatically scaled back the obligation incurred by Princeton Borough and Township for construction undertaken by Princeton University. (Under the terms of its financial agreements with the Borough and Township, the University is responsible for any affordable housing obligation occurring because of its presence in either municipality.) Whereas under the original regulations the state would have assessed Princeton Borough an obligation to provide 43 affordable housing units because of new construction over the next decade, under the exemption sought by the University, that obligation has been reduced to 17 units.
The University's rationale for seeking the reduced assessment is that an academic building does not lead to the creation of as many new jobs as would a commercial building of the same size. Without disputing this contention, we can question why the University, with a $14 billion endowment, would seek to avoid responsibility for providing 26 more units of affordable housing when there are, at any given moment, over 800 homeless individuals in Mercer County, most of whom are children.
To be sure, seeking the housing exemption was a good business move that will save the University several million dollars over the next decade. As often the case, the University made only a partial accounting of its decision. In the short time it has the attention of a group of young people the University repeatedly claims will be the next leaders of the country and world, administrators used their legal muscle to force the creation of a loophole in a law of general applicability. Instead of acting in locus parentis, they acted like Exxon.
This decision is the product of the conception that Princeton can be the greatest place in the world for undergraduate education and simultaneously conduct its financial affairs like any for-profit institution would. On its surface, the administration pulls it off: The business side, which seeks nothing but the maximization of profit and the enlargement of the endowment, shows extraordinary year-on-year returns. The education side, which is concerned little with costs and will spare no expense to set the stage for scholarly excellence, regularly places the Princeton name at or near the top of all kinds of rankings. But any notion that the business and educational functions are separate is an illusion. Just as a father who cheats on his taxes cannot expect teachings about honesty to resonate with his children, neither should Princeton expect its exhortations to public service to inspire any of its students.
For all of Princeton's hard lobbying, the loophole might soon be shut. The State Appellate Division recently ruled that COAH's regulations, which included the University's loophole, served to "frustrate, rather than further" the construction of affordable housing in the state and sent COAH back to the drawing board to come up with new ones. There is little reason to believe, though, that the University itself has had a change of heart, and so, we should not be surprised to again see the absurd display of the University pleading with COAH about the unfairness of its affordable housing obligation. Thomas Bohnett is a senior in the Wilson School from Princeton Junction, N.J. He can be reached at tbohnett@princeton.edu.
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