Khalil ’13 to revive Princeton ACLU chapter after 5-year hiatus

A group of students is attempting to resurrect the University chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union after nearly five years as an inactive organization.

“I was really interested in getting the organization going again at Princeton,” said Randy Khalil ’13, who is leading the efforts to reform the group. “I sort of thought that there was already an ACLU chapter at Princeton. Through time, I found out it was inactive.”

Khalil is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

The last time the ACLU had an active presence on campus was in 2006, according to former ACLU chapter president Chris Jackson ’07. The chapter “hadn’t held a meeting for a while,” Jackson said in an e-mail, and he revived the organization by contacting the state headquarters.

Though the organization had over 100 members on its roster and 20 members who regularly attended events at the end of Jackson’s term, he said, no students chose to run to succeed him as president.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate at the point to stay on as president, especially in light of the fact that our constitution imposed a clear-cut restriction on how long I could serve,” Jackson explained. “I reached out to a few people at that point to see if anyone was interested in taking over, but, much to my regret, we couldn’t find any volunteers.”

However, Jackson added, he felt it was important for the ACLU to remain an active presence on campus.

“The free exchange of ideas is particularly important in a university setting,” he said of the organization. “College chapters have [a] wonderful opportunity to do their part in protecting academic freedom.”

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While Khalil is the only organizer of the club thus far, he said that he expects there to be substantial student participation.

“I think it’s actually a big void in terms of a lot of students very interested in these issues but with no official organization present to address them,” he explained. “The ACLU is primarily focused on protecting the First, Fourth, Fifth and 14th amendments.”

There were 11 students in attendance at Monday night’s interest meeting in the Frist Campus Center, where the group discussed its plans to gain official recognition. “We are currently recognized by the University and are working on becoming recognized by the ACLU of New Jersey and nationwide,” Khalil said at the meeting.

The students in attendance also discussed the particular issues that they feel are most important to them. In addition to advocacy for national issues, such as the repeal of the death penalty and prisoner rights, several students cited privacy concerns regarding University policies.

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“There are policies that the University is currently taking that may be infringing on student privacy,” Khalil said, noting policies such as residential college advisor patrol requirements.

Khalil also cited more specific issues in an interview, such as the recent extension of the Patriot Act, LGBT discrimination, marriage equality, attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, racial profiling and new Transportation Security Administration protocols being implemented in airports as possible topics of interest for the group.

“Interested in working to protect civil rights, fight all discrimination and broaden free speech?” said the Facebook invitation for Monday’s meeting. “Angry at the recent extension of the so called ‘Patriot’ Act? Don’t want to be photographed nude or groped at the airport? Want to get a better understanding of what your rights are as students? Join the ACLU of Princeton!”

Though the University chapter will address “a wide variety of civil rights issues,” it will remain unaffiliated from any particular political ideology, Khalil said. “We’re just a group of students who want to protect civil liberties,” he explained.

The group plans to hold their meetings at 8:30 p.m. on Mondays in Room 309 of Frist. Khalil said that the chapter hopes to host speakers from the national ACLU to come speak to students about civil liberties and student rights issues.