Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Setting the table

At Princeton, another year has come and gone, and with it the cycle of all our peculiar rituals. This week, a significant portion of the junior and senior classes gather in big mansions behind locked doors (they’re locked: I’ve checked) to cast judgment on a significant portion of the sophomore class. They will display the sophomore’s names and photos, hear the case for and against the social merits of each, and then, one by one, vote on whether or not to admit the sophomore in question into their mansion. 

The problem with bad sex

Rather than slotting “bad sex” as unavoidable, we need to take it as a symbol of how society has stigmatized female sexuality. Blanket advice, telling women to better use verbal cues and just say stop, is not the solution. It unfairly places all the blame on the victim. If we want to address sexual assault, we need to start by examining our society’s toxic sexual culture and the role we play in upholding it.

Private posts create public profiles

Anything can go viral at the click of a button. Posting pictures like these can have grave consequences in someone’s future professional and personal lives. Just four years ago, a lewd photo from a Tiger Inn party created a national scandal for two Princeton students. As the Street’s holiest weekend approaches, I urge all of my classmates to exercise caution when posting about their late-night escapades on social media.

Letter from the Editor: In the 142nd year, our purpose

Many of us ‘Prince’ folks didn’t know how newspapers worked before we matriculated, but one of our priorities is to make sure that everyone who wants to can have the opportunity to learn. The more heads together working to uncover truth, the better our journalism will be. 

A response to the judgements against judge Rosemarie Aquilina

We need more judges like Aquilina to stand up for silenced victims of sexual assault, when everyone else has left them behind.  

Turn off the TVs in Dillon

A few weeks ago, Life Time Fitness, a Minnesota-based gym chain, made national news by announcing that it was going to eliminate all news channels from its TVs. Members still had the option of watching cable news networks on individual workout machines, but the large TVs in the gym showed lighter content from channels like HGTV or USA.

Mental Health Peers: A needed support system

I propose the establishment of Mental Health Peers. Mental Health Peers will provide a concrete service in the University community by training students how to be friends in mental crisis. We will train our friends, classmates, and peers how to talk about mental health.

Why I no longer write (poetry)

Poetry has been good to me in this: It is language, and perhaps one day I will speak. I do not know if time will reincarnate my voice into its own entity, or if one day my old age will legitimize my words and open up an unbridled spot for my voice.

Honor in solidarity

The question is how to use the advantages of the scope and scale of the support for the referenda. The mass of the student body is critical. Utilizing the popular support of the referenda to start a collective bargaining process is our strongest position. 

The case for a short break

Three weeks is enough time to see the important people in one’s life, but not enough to fully slip into the routines of home again.

We need to be more politically active off campus

On-campus activism is highly needed and noble, but only a synthesis of on-campus and off-campus activism can destroy deep-seated inequality, exclusion, and hardship. 

The University's lack of timeframe should alarm us

Instead, the administration has offered no timetable, writing only that the referenda “cannot take effect at this time.” Such oblique language makes me doubt that anything will be done.

The most important referendum passed

Raising the standard of evidence plus lowering penalties seems to encourage cheating more than anything else. Honestly, the administration saved students from themselves. 

Letter from the Editor: It’s not goodbye, but see you later

My greatest hope — for all of our community, not just journalists — is a realization of our shared humanity, and our ability to inspire, to make a positive impact, to effect real change.

The University’s response to the Honor Constitution referenda was predictable and prudent

Since it is almost certain that the University will not reverse its decision on the three referenda, students should move on and focus on how they can play a role in the formal process taking place to review the Honor System.

On being a prude

I only learned what “Netflix and chill” meant after I once suggested to a guy I liked that we do so sometime. He quickly texted me back to say that he was shocked by my honesty. “You’re usually pretty shy,” he said. “Are you sure?” I couldn’t understand why he was so hesitant. “What do you mean?” I responded. “I’m only inviting you to watch a movie.”

On my soapbox: The struggle with laundry at Princeton

I hate doing laundry at Princeton. The fact that basic respect for another student's time and property is severely lacking in Princeton laundry rooms isn’t a “first world problem”; rather, it’s indicative of a universal crisis of character, community, and integrity.

Keep exams after break

Around this time every year, it is a solemn and holy tradition for Princeton Undergraduates to start complaining about a peculiarity of the Princeton academic calendar. Exams after break? Ew. But I argue that if you closely examine the arguments for both having exams before break, and having exams after break, it is clear that having exams after break is the superior (if counter-intuitive) choice. Princeton Students should not be so hasty to wish away one of the great structural advantages Princeton gives us. 

The Republican tax bill is a disaster for millennials

Arm Princeton’s squirrels

Everyone has a right to arms under the Second Amendment. It is therefore immoral and illegal to deny our most vulnerable citizens their right to self-protection. Squirrels, who are people too, live in a precarious balance of life and death. We can only improve the balance on life’s side by providing more firearms.