Committing to communal health: a student pledge to observe social distancing and COVID-19 safety protocols
Guest ContributorsIt is our hope that the University will strive to bring as many students back to campus as possible.
It is our hope that the University will strive to bring as many students back to campus as possible.
We feel that we have not been prepared by the School to confront the structures of race and power which undergird policy crises.
As some of the oldest and most well-established organizations on campus, we recognize our and Princeton’s complex history with race and our role in directly recognizing and calling out the injustices that have impacted and continue to impact Black students.
As students, activists, and proponents of a better world, it is our duty to stand up against injustice and fight for the equal treatment of all.
Instead of addressing the inequities and burdens of online learning, the destabilizing effect of lost income or housing, or the trauma of a public health crisis, Betsy DeVos has devoted the Department of Education’s energy to making the Title IX process more difficult for survivors.
Although this might seem at first contradictory to the stay-at-home orders, for those of us with the privilege and comfort of safe environments, now is our time to get involved. We came to Princeton to become leaders in our fields and serve the world – a pandemic isn’t the time to forget that mission, but rather the time to get to work.
This public health crisis has required us to ask all Princeton undergraduates to do a difficult thing: to complete their semesters online, and, in the case of our seniors, to forgo experiences that they had anticipated throughout their time here.
We hesitated to write you because we feel you've done an outstanding job leading the University, and with the gravity of the pandemic backdrop, because you obviously are facing many unforeseen and serious challenges every day. However, we feel compelled to reach out to you on this issue because we feel strongly that Princeton has made the wrong decision on not permitting its students to withdraw and come back next spring.
We, the Princeton University AASA E-Board, strongly believe that unity and community is the need of this hour of crisis. As such, we cannot sit idly and watch as racist attacks continue to threaten and divide our country.
Our “belief” that this year’s room draw process “will run smoothly” isn’t based on pure optimism, but rather the culmination of several months of work and advocacy.
Whatever my political preferences are, I should be given the same opportunity as any other American to choose from the wide array of candidates.
This is an unprecedented time in Princeton’s history, and we trust that the University is working to promote the safety of our community.
We stand by the decision of the Class Day Co-Chairs and throw our unwavering support behind Marshawn Lynch.
We believe that reforming the nomination and selection process by clarifying the procedure and by involving the senior class will definitely anticipate such concerns, giving students a better understanding and moreover a sense of ownership over the decision to invite a specific speaker.
In response to these calls, President Eisgruber has repeatedly argued that the University’s divestment from fossil fuels would amount to political position-taking. However, to continue to fund the fossil fuel industry is a political stand and doing nothing in a time of crisis is a moral failure.
Since the emergence of the new coronavirus in China and declaration of a global health emergency, we have taken the situation seriously and have redoubled our efforts to fulfill a core responsibility we have as an administration: to ensure the health and safety of every member of the University community.
“Too much to read and too little time” is probably the answer for a good many students. We begin our courses with romantic notions of learning, discussing world-changing ideas, growing deeper and more nuanced in our understanding of ourselves and the world. Soon, however, we are in survival mode, simply trying to keep up with — or at least not fall too far behind in — our work because we’ve got too much to read and too little time.
We are all in this together, regardless of our backgrounds. We never attempted to be negligent in our quarantine efforts, but we will not endure any inhumane treatment that no one in this society deserves.
We, the undersigned students, alumni, and affiliates of Princeton University, recognize, respect, and stand in solidarity with peaceful protests by students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University against the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019.
As we hope for this violence to come to an end and for justice to be achieved, we stand in solidarity and lend all our support to the students fighting fearlessly on the streets.