Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Abigail Rabieh
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: As first-years lined up outside Richardson Auditorium to hear President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and Vice President Rochelle Calhoun speak about the importance of maintaining open dialogue on campus, older students stood outside and handed them pieces of paper with QR codes that linked to a PDF of the “Princeton Disorientation Guide 2024.” This document explains that “protest theory” teaches us how to build moral authority in two ways: by “increasing the number of people and increasing the sacrifice of the participants.”

This short claim demonstrates well the extent of the wrongness and impropriety that self-proclaimed “leftists” associated with the Princeton Progressive Coalition bring not only to interactions with their peers, but with the University itself. After all, since when has morality been determined by crowd behavior? What ever happened to being right?

Jorge Reyes
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: As Gaza solidarity encampments sprung up across university campuses last spring, students faced severe institutional repercussions for their activism. At Princeton, at least two students had their diplomas withheld and 15 were arrested. Across the country, over 3,000 students were arrested for participation in Gaza solidarity protests.

For some, these consequences are disproportionately dire. Undocumented and international students run the risk of being deported if arrested and are limited in their ability to protest, especially with politicians like Donald Trump threatening to infringe on their freedom of assembly.

Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The 15 students and University community members arrested during pro-Palestine protests last spring will not have their cases dismissed following a hearing on Tuesday.

Aymen Aboushi, an attorney representing the 12 students and one postdoc arrested for occupying Clio Hall, motioned to dismiss the charges of defiant trespassing, which Judge John McCarthy III ’69 ultimately rejected to hear. Citing body camera footage, he argued that the students at Clio Hall did not receive notice from the officers who arrested them that they were trespassing. Under New Jersey law, defiant trespassing occurs when someone enters a space after “knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so.”

Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The Department of Public Safety (PSAFE) is investigating small flyers found on campus reading “Nuke Gaza” and “Kill Roaches” as a bias incident, the University told The Daily Princetonian on Friday.

The pile of approximately 30 paper cutouts was first discovered by a fourth-year graduate student around noon on Friday outside entryway six of Spelman Hall. The individual gathered up the flyers and called PSAFE. Princeton’s daily crime log shows that PSAFE officers responded to the incident shortly after the call, and logged the interaction as a “harrassment/bias incident.” According to the graduate student, PSAFE collected the flyers from them at the scene.

Hope Perry ‘24
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) returned this fall semester with an inaugural rally and a familiar message from last spring, calling for the University to divest and disassociate from Israel and Israeli companies, universities, and cultural institutions, and asking Princeton to drop charges against students who participated in an April sit-in.

Olivia Sanchez
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Sept. 5, the University retracted its decision to ban protests on the front lawn of Nassau Hall. Cannon Green and the Prospect House grounds remain off-limits locations to protest.

According to University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill, the change was made because the walkways in front of Nassau Hall “have long been an approved protest site.” “Historically, we have recognized — and we continue to recognize — that protests legitimately spill onto the lawn. We have changed our language to reflect that,” she wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.