The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here. A version of this open letter was previously published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
We, the undersigned Princeton women of ’72, have been deeply shocked by the leaked Supreme Court draft authored by our classmate Justice Samuel Alito ’72.
We are about to celebrate our 50th reunion — half a century since we graduated from Princeton. We find it bitter indeed to see the draft Supreme Court opinion reverse the strides we thought we were making, as part of one of the first classes of Princeton women, towards a world of equity and fairness for women of all races and social and economic positions.
We ask our classmates, and the community of Princeton, to protest the logic that ties us to a constitutional originalism which resists any movement toward justice but, rather, moves us backwards. As Jill Lepore so aptly put it in The New Yorker, “Women are indeed missing from the Constitution. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor.”
Instead, we want to call attention to this urgent truth: We hang on a precipice, balanced between the draft opinion and the final Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade. The right to manage one's own health and most intimate personal and family decisions without outside interference is at risk right now and should be preserved to ensure social justice for ourselves, for our classmates, and for the world Princeton purports to serve.
Signed:
Women of ’72
Susan M. Squier
Daryl English
Judith White
Joan Matthews
Helene Fromm
Holly Lovejoy
Jacqueline Ariail
Claudia M. Tesoro
Barbara Julius
Alice Kelikian
Diana Foster
Meggan Moorhead
Ann Sease Monoyios
Yaffa Ventura-Beck
Anna Baird Chitty
Vera Marcus
Helena Novakova
Angenette Duffy Meaney
Larissa Brown
Sherry Peltz Leiwant
Jerri Donovan
Carol Rahn
Barbara Geller
Mary Watkins
Susan Brownstone Eig
Ellen Moriece Rome
Mary Baldwin
Elizabeth Houghton
Friends of the women of ’72:
Christine LaLonde Robinson ‘73
Mara Melum ‘73
Carol Obertubbesing ‘73
Macie Green Hall VanRensselaer ‘73
Beth N. Rom-Rymer, ‘73
Nancy Teaff ‘73
Read More
Play the Dean’s Date crossword, ‘Crunch Time’
Lindsay McBrideTake a break from studying and celebrate the last-ever Dean’s Date with this puzzle by Associate Puzzles Editor Lindsay McBride.
Take a break from studying and celebrate the last-ever Dean’s Date with this puzzle by Associate Puzzles Editor Lindsay McBride.
How Black football players find community on campus, on and off the field
Ify ObianwuThe Tigers played the first-ever official football game against Rutgers in November 1869. Today, the 2024 iteration of the Tiger squad looks very different. The ‘Prince’ sat down with three Black football players to learn how they build community on campus in the face of pressure on and off the field.
The Tigers played the first-ever official football game against Rutgers in November 1869. Today, the 2024 iteration of the Tiger squad looks very different. The ‘Prince’ sat down with three Black football players to learn how they build community on campus in the face of pressure on and off the field.
J.D. Vance’s chief of staff Jacob Reses ’13, a ‘very considerate’ intellectual at Princeton
Sena ChangThe ‘Prince’ spoke with people who knew Jacob Reses ’13, who matriculated at Princeton as a Democrat and now serves as Republican Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s chief of staff.
The ‘Prince’ spoke with people who knew Jacob Reses ’13, who matriculated at Princeton as a Democrat and now serves as Republican Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s chief of staff.
