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Over a hundred students and community members gathered outside Firestone Library on Friday to protest authoritarianism and the Trump administration. The event, primarily organized by Sunrise Princeton, featured eleven speakers addressing a wide range of issues, including ICE raids, climate change, support for Palestine, and academic freedom.
This is the first major student-organized protest on campus of the semester, and follows other anti-Trump demonstrations in the area under the umbrella of the “No Kings” movement.
Zachary Goldberg ’28 told The Daily Princetonian that he thought it was important for a coalition to present unified support in response to authoritarianism.
“[The protest] should also really speak to students, both who were able to come, or who weren’t able to ... that progressive activism and organizing on this campus is a community,” Goldberg said.
Protesters began arriving at 5 p.m., with the first speaker, Ana Paola Pazmiño, Executive Director of local immigrant advocacy group Resistencia en Acción, taking the megaphone at 5:15 p.m. Pazmiño spoke about the fatal shooting of a Guatemalan immigrant woman working for a house cleaning company in Indiana who accidentally entered the wrong house.
“Today, we mourn her loss,” Paola said at the protest. “The racial tension that we see … [is] within this administration that is constantly oppressing immigrants, constantly oppressing people of color, constantly trying to censor our speech.”
Andrew Cole, a professor in the English department, addressed academic freedom, including the deals made by Princeton’s peer institutions with the Trump administration. The rally took place just hours after Cornell University announced a deal to restore $250 million in research funding in exchange for a $30 million fine to the federal government, among other terms.
“Cornell University succumbed to extortion from this administration to the tune of $60 million,” Cole said at the protest. “When academic freedom is strong, we are strong. When we are strong, there is democracy.”
In the middle of Cole’s address, one person loudly booed the crowd and walked into the chapel. Neither Cole nor any of the protestors present addressed this individual. There were no other counterprotesters.
Co-President of Students for Prison Education, Abolition & Reform (SPEAR), Kristin Nagy ’27, also spoke, criticizing both the University and the Trump administration’s expansion of immigration detention and deportation.
“We all face the same obstacles, a government which is unafraid to be unabashedly fascist at the expense of our communities, and a university administration steeped in money interests that would like us to ‘Keep calm and carry on,’” Nagy said, referencing an informal slogan from University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 in February about his general philosophy to immediately responding to Trump’s executive actions.
Jabari Lawrence GS, who spoke at the rally representing Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), also criticized the University.
“The majority of students on this campus are very against the authoritarian, fascist encroachment that’s going on at the federal level, all the way down to the University ignoring referenda,” Lawrence said in an interview. Student-passed referenda on a range of issues, from allowing a pass/D/fail for language classes to divestment from companies linked to weapons manufacturing, have not been implemented; University administrators, including Eisgruber, have maintained that referenda do not automatically trigger changes and have no official role in University governance.
Executive Director of the Climate Revolution Action Network Benjamin Dziobek also spoke, discussing Princeton’s continued financial relationships with fossil fuel companies, despite a referendum passed last year calling for the University to sever ties with fossil fuel company BP.
Nagy and Mira Eashwaran ’26 concluded this section of the protest by performing several songs, including “Heavy Foot” by Mon Rovîa and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan. After the songs concluded, the protesters marched through East Pyne Hall and gathered on the north side of Nassau Hall, where three additional speakers addressed the crowd.
Eashwaran is an associate Features editor for the ‘Prince.’
Postdoctoral research associate Jessica Ng, the first speaker outside Nassau Hall, expressed her disappointment that “instead of shoring up job security for postdocs so we can keep doing our research, Princeton proposed layoffs to get rid of postdocs in the middle of our appointment.”
Ng and the postdoc union are currently in contract negotiations with the University, including over potential language that would allow postdocs to be laid off with a few months’ notice — one month for a one-year appointment, or longer depending on the length of the contract. The union has counterproposed that postdocs cannot be laid off within the first year of employment, and any layoffs must occur with nine months’ notice.
Concluding the protest, Isaac Barsoum ’28, co-coordinator of Sunrise Princeton, reflected on the past year, with the protest taking place approximately a year after Trump was elected.
Barsoum is an Opinion columnist for the ‘Prince.’
“One year ago, we were afraid. But today, we are optimistic about our vision,” Barsoum said.
The protest concluded at around 6:30 p.m.
Devon Rudolph is an associate News editor and staff Sports writer. She is from Fairfax, Va., and typically directs investigative coverage. She can be reached at dr7917[at]princeton.edu.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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