Website directed at Tilghman aims to give Greek life a voice

When the Working Group on Campus Social and Residential Life released its report last May, the administration set up two open forums to give students who oppose the proposed freshman rush ban a chance to voice their concerns. The forums took place and students expressed their views, but President Shirley Tilghman and the Board of Trustees nonetheless decided this summer to implement the ban beginning next fall.

Some students are now beginning to think that members of the administration did not take their positions seriously and are taking it upon themselves to foster the type of conversations that they felt were either non-existent or ignored last spring.

Last week, Zeta Psi member Josh Miller, formerly a member of the Class of 2012 who recently decided to take a voluntary leave of absence to launch an Internet start-up in New York, launched a website under the domain name stopshirley.com that aims to facilitate the kind of discussion that Miller feels has been lacking.

“President Tilghman does not want to have an open, honest conversation,” the website reads. “So we’re going to start one on our own.”

Below the heading, there is a space for visitors to the site to submit their email addresses to be included in the conversation when it begins. Miller said that the site’s principal feature will be a “community debate feature” that allows visitors to submit, discuss and vote on ideas. Additionally, there will be a petition that allows alumni to pledge donations to Princeton contingent on the reversal of the policy “until an open, community conversation about Greek life is held,” Miller wrote in an email. Since the launch, over 300 students have signed up on the website.

Miller said he got the idea for the website after publishing two op-eds in The Daily Princetonian — one last May and one on Sept. 16 — opposing the freshman rush ban.

“I have received dozens of emails from alumni in response to my guest columns in the ‘Prince,’ and they all had two things in common: Everyone wholeheartedly supported what I was standing up for, and none of them were fans of Greek life,” Miller wrote.

Miller said that both his op-eds and the website were not necessarily aimed at protecting freshman rush and persuading the University to reverse its decision. Instead, he complained that Tilghman’s administration has been acting unilaterally and authoritatively and that the majority of the student body has reacted with apathy.

“This is not about saving ‘Animal House,’ it’s about challenging the administration for overstepping their bounds,” Miller said. “I’m not fighting for pledges. I’m fighting on principle.”

Indeed, the website makes no direct reference to Greek life or the freshman rush ban, except for a link to Miller’s most recent op-ed. The heading on the site reads “Progressive Princeton,” and the subtitle below quotes from Miller’s Sept. 16 op-ed arguing, “Paternalism is not progressive, and it is not Princeton.”

As an example of this paternalism, Miller claimed that the administration “hacked” into the @princeton.edu email accounts of students involved in Greek life last year as part of an investigation, a claim Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Victoria Jueds strongly denied.

“I have no knowledge of any accusations of ‘hacking’ by the University,” Jueds said in an email.

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The IT Privacy Policy notes that the University does in some cases reserve the right to access emails.

“All contents in storage on data and voice systems are subject to the rules of Princeton University, including the University’s ability under certain circumstances to access, restrict, monitor and regulate the systems that support and contain them,” the policy reads. “The University reserves the right to access files and documents (including email and voice mail) residing on University-owned equipment.”

Additionally, Jueds said that the University had not been silencing conversations or ignoring complaints and noted that she thought the working group encouraged feedback.

“I can unequivocally assure you that all students may freely express their opinions about University policies, even ones with which they disagree,” Jueds wrote. “It was also clear that the [working] group gathered information and offered recommendations in an open and straightforward way.”

But even more than the administration’s alleged overstepping, Miller said he is disappointed by the lack of a reaction from non-Greek students, who he thinks should be upset about the University’s actions.

“We are Princeton students first, Greek members second, and our educators are encroaching on our rights as students,” Miller said. “And every single member of the Princeton community should be standing behind us for that reason.”