Panel advises campus conservatives

The discussion, moderated by politics professor Robert George, included Rhodes scholars Sherif Girgis ’08 and Christian Sahner ’07, Cassy DeBenedetto ’07, Daniel Mark ’03 GS and Cason Cheely ’03.

The panel members gave advice on how to overcome the “double standard” of being conservative in a liberal campus environment, including the social concerns they faced when they arrived at school.

DeBenedetto said that when she arrived on campus, she did not “expect to find ... the number of students who didn’t value [the sanctity of marriage].” Girgis, on the other hand, “wasn’t surprised by general breakdown of opinions on campus” when he first arrived.

As a freshman, DeBenedetto said, she “didn’t know the arguments” for defending all her beliefs. But she encouraged students to “take ownership for what you believe in” and to “take advantage of the environment you’re in now.”

DeBenedetto said that she started the Anscombe Society because she was concerned that her peers “were being hurt by the hookup culture.”

She explained that she realized “the type of distress they were feeling” and believed that “at the root of that [distress] was their sexual behavior and their decisions in that area.” Thus, she “wanted to make sure they had everything at their disposal” to make the right moral decisions.

George gave advice on how students can assert and defend their personal positions, specifically mentioning that they should try not to be discouraged by the attitudes that their peers may hold toward conservative views.

Mark mentioned that “finding friends who shared my opinions and why they shared them” was integral to his experience at Princeton.

Sahner added, “It means the world to know that if you’re engaging in these debates that could shake your self confidence ... that there are people at this university that support you ... in the same causes.”

He also said that though he had personally learned to be confident in “what [he believed] was correct,” it is normal to “worry about how your decisions reflect on what you want to do.”

Girgis said that presenting a coherent position is important, explaining that part of the “success of conservative students [at Princeton] is because of how [they’ve] done [their] business in terms of presenting their arguments.”

He raised the example of not being pigeonholed into defending religious positions in lieu of conservative positions on controversial topics.

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“Often, the assumption is that if you’re on the conservative side of those issues, you must be on the religious side of those issues as well,” he explained. He added, however, that “making an argument ... without ... mentioning any religious names” is feasible and that “there are such arguments and they have to be met on their own terms.”

Though a member of the audience asked the panel about how their beliefs aligned with national political parties, the panelists were reluctant to make generalizations. “These views do not belong to a specific political party,” Sahner said, adding that panel members are involved in groups with diverse political views.

Audience member Steve Marcus ’10 said he found the discussion interesting.

“I’m glad it was very civil,” he said. “I’m glad Princeton can support a diverse group of views.”