Regarding “Reevaluating our commenting policy” (Monday, Nov. 5, 2012)
I am grateful to Henry Rome and the editorial staff of The Daily Princetonian for raising the question of whether correspondents should sign their names to comments they make in response to articles and editorials in the paper. Anonymity invites candor, to be sure, but it also invites thoughtlessness, not to mention malice and spite. In an academic community like ours, anonymous comments strike me as entirely out of place. They are antithetical to our Honor Code, whose guiding principle is that ideas are the coin of the realm. The Honor Code demands that students “own their words” in their academic work. When I have questioned previous editors of the ‘Prince’ about their rationale for permitting readers to comment anonymously, they cite two arguments that are inconsistent with the ethos of this great University. They claim that anonymity allows for greater openness in debate and that its current policy increases readership of the ‘Prince.’ To which I respond: Anonymous debate is no debate at all, especially in a university setting. All too often the debate sinks to the standard of the lowest common denominator, which discourages further debate rather than catalyzes it. As for the argument that it increases readership, I would simply ask: What value do you place on readers who go to the ‘Prince’ website to witness the verbal equivalent of a food fight? I very much hope that editors will return to a policy that has served this paper well since its founding in 1876 and ask that its readers “own their words.”
President Shirley Tilghman
Princeton, N.J.
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