his varsity spot on the men’s basketball team and membership in Cap & Gown, according to a 2012 profile in The Daily Princetonian.
Known for leading the Tory’s series of controversial “acerbic paragraph takedowns of liberalism” called “The Rant,” he propelled the publication to campus notoriety, taking polarizing positions in his writing.
In an April 2002 issue, Hegseth wrote, “As the publisher of the Tory, I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.”
Six months later, Hegseth and other Tory editors penned in their October issue: “Boys can wear bras and girls can wear ties until we’re blue in the face, but it won’t change the reality that the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.”
“We were pushing the envelope and a lot of times we gave our writers a lot of latitude and that’s going to come with differences of opinion,” he said in an interview during his failed bid for Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) seat in 2012. “There is obviously some phraseology or terms or language that [was] maybe too sharp.”
Upon graduation from Princeton, Hegseth worked as an equity capital markets analyst while serving as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard. Hegseth completed
tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay during this time. He was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge.
His career following the military featured a mix of veterans’ advocacy work and conservative political activism, including stints at Vets For Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. After failing to grasp the Republican nomination during his 2012 Senate bid, he founded a political action committee (PAC) called MN Pac. In 2014, he joined Fox News as a political contributor.
Following Trump’s election in 2016, Hegseth was floated to lead the United States Department of Veteran Affairs, but career civil-servant David Shulkin ended up securing the nomination.
Hegseth did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The defense secretary role was notably volatile during the first Trump White House. Jim Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, resigned in 2019 citing leadership differences. His successor — Mark Esper — was fired days after the 2020 presidential election.
The last Princeton alumnus to serve as Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld ’54. Rumsfeld served as both the 13th and 21st Secretary of Defense under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush from 1975 to 1977 and 2001 to 2006, respectively.
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
By Arnav Ratna Contributing
Second postdoc bargaining session breaks down as disagreement over observers continues
By Meghana Veldhuis & Nikki Han Assistant News Editor & News Contributor
Members of the Princeton University Postdocs and Scholars-United Auto Workers (PUPS-UAW) union and representatives from the University attempted to have their second bargaining session on Tuesday, Nov. 12. However, in a series of events reminiscent of last week’s bargaining session, negotiations halted after new disputes on whether observers would be allowed to attend the negotiations.
Postdoc Lacy Feigh, a member of the bargaining committee, along with Hanna Ehrlich, an observer and postdoc union member, said that the night before the session began, the bargaining committee notified the University that they did not plan to bring more observers than could fit in the negotiating room. On the day of the meeting, University representatives refused to enter the room due to the number of observers, instead requesting that none be present. The bargaining committee offered a cap of 10 observers, which led the University to counter with a cap of five.
“It felt like a power play,” Ehrlich said.
Feigh and another member of the bargaining committee presented the University with a petition — with over 170 signatures — explaining that they wanted open bargaining for purposes of transparency and democracy. Feigh told The Daily Princetonian that the postdocs “really wanted to get to come to an agreement to start bargaining.”
The bargaining committee then proposed a cap of seven observers. When 30 minutes were left of the three hour-long bargaining session, University representatives told the bargaining committee via email that they still insisted on the five-observer cap. The union did not agree to meet this cap, and, as a result, no bargaining proceeded.
In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote that the University and PUPS-UAW “have not been able to agree on the number of observers or the parameters regarding observers. While there is no legal right to have observers in bargaining sessions, the University has agreed to consider observers as an attempt to compromise.”
“There was seemingly no rationale for why five and not 10 observers,” Feigh said, saying that it seemed “quite arbitrary.”
Morrill did not comment on the University’s specific request for five observers, repeating the University has “agreed to consider observers as an attempt to compromise,” while emphasizing that there is no legal obligation to include observers.
As stated on the PUPS-UAW website, the union aims to give the postdocs improvements regarding “salary, compensation, appointments, housing, access, transportation, access to wellness resources, increased benefits, workplace rights and protections, workplace support, and union rights and security,” according to Feigh.
Although Feigh and Ehrlich acknowledged that negotiating ground rules regarding observers is not legally mandated, Ehrlich said that these types of “ground rules” are what they feel is an “industry standard and relatively reasonable.” Feigh added that management refusing to leave their caucus room to talk with the union “just doesn’t seem like something a professional institution does.”
Feigh mentioned that she was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where bargaining negotiations with the graduate student union are concurrently underway.
“[Penn has] no issues with observers in the room, and so seeing that process play out just down the road, 50 miles away at a peer institution, and
seeing Princeton’s real insistence on limiting having its own employees in the room to witness this process is just really confusing, I think, to many of us,” Feigh said. “We’ve moved quite significantly, and it seems like they’re just unwilling to meet us anywhere reasonable.”
“What might Princeton be hiding, right?” Ehrlich asked. “What do they not want to see shared among postdocs?”
Morrill wrote to the ‘Prince’ that “The University has proposed using the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (at no cost for either party) to assist the parties and remains willing to pursue this option.”
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is an independent government agency that provides services in resolving labor-management disputes, including collective bargaining mediation.
Feigh and Ehrlich said that the union’s priority between now and the next bargaining session is to try to continue to negotiate the “ground rules,” including establishing a number of agreed-upon observers.
Efforts were made to prevent the dispute over observers that took place Tuesday. Morrill wrote that an attempt to negotiate ground rules did occur after the previous session which saw a similar breakdown over rules regarding observers.
“Between meetings, the University and PUPS-UAW exchanged additional proposals regarding ground rules for negotiations, including proposals regarding observers,” Morrill wrote, but added that an agreement was not able to be reached.
The next bargaining session will be in three weeks, on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
Meghana Veldhuis is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Bergen County, N.J. and typically covers faculty and graduate students.
Nikki Han is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Hegseth speaking with attendees at the 2018 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA.
Princeton senior becomes mayor in hometown, then decides to give it away
By Christopher Bao Assistant News Editor
It is not every day that a Princeton undergraduate becomes mayor. It’s even rarer when they call their hold on the position into question, effectively turning down the job.
For the past several weeks, Thomas Emens ’25 has taken time away from his thesis research and coursework to serve as the acting mayor of his hometown, Jamesburg, N.J., in the wake of the unexpected resignation of the previous mayor, Thomas Gibbons.
On Election Day, Gibbons — who was elected for a four-year term in November 2023 — resigned. In a letter to the borough council, Gibbons attributed the decision to a “strong calling” to dedicate more time to his “family” and “faith.” In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Gibbons also cited health issues as factors leading to his resignation.
Gibbons told the ‘Prince’ that he is leaving Jamesburg in good hands with Emens.
“It was something that I [gave] a great deal of thought to, and I would not have resigned if I thought the town was in bad shape in terms of leadership … So I felt that it was a good opportunity for me just to turn it over to people who run the town the right direction, and I could take care of my personal issues, my life as well,” Gibbons said.
“[In] my very first interview with Tom, I had the wrong impression of him. I thought he was a young upstart; I had no clue as to what his background was,” Gibbons said. “Within minutes of our first
conversation, I realized how intelligent he was, how invested he was in doing what was right for Jamesburg … the more I spoke to him, the more I realized, ‘this guy is the real deal, and he knows his stuff.’”
Emens is no stranger to public office: Since 2023, he’s served on Jamesburg’s town council and was selected to serve as Council President in 2024.
On campus, Emens is the President of the Princeton Transfer Association and has served on the Pace Center’s Civic Leadership Council. He also participates in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society and was a 2024 intern with the Princeton Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative.
As soon as Gibbons resigned, Emens became acting mayor. He briefly held this position earlier in the year when Gibbons was on leave. However, because Jamesburg’s government is set up in a “weak mayor, strong council” format — where more power is reserved for the council members — Emens has still played a major role in the town council as President.
Councilman Tom Goletz, who currently serves on the council, reflected on his first impressions of Emens. “When he eventually made it to the council, I met him: he’s very business-like, he’s puttogether, well-spoken, intelligent, and that hasn’t changed … He works tirelessly.”
While council members have expressed faith in Emens, whether or not he is legally permitted to stay in the role is a point of contention. According to New Jersey law, if the resigning mayor is a nominee of a political party, then the municipal committee of the
political party has the right to select three candidates, from which the council selects a successor. Although Gibbons ran as a Republican, he was not nominated by the Republican county committee. Emens, who is a Democrat, was the one who called for a legal review of the situation, calling his own appointment into question.
“He’s been working on a lot of our legal opinions with our attorney, and he’s been doing a lot of research, because this was a little bit of a unique situation.” Councilwoman Samantha Rampacek, who ran with Emens for council in 2023, told the ‘Prince.’ “He’s been doing a fantastic job in his role.”
The initial opinion from the borough attorney, Frederick Raffetto, said that because of possible ambiguity in the law, the borough may have needed to involve the state legislature or a judge to clarify. However, upon further guidance, the borough is now following the original approach suggested by the law, and the council will gather on Nov. 25 to vote on three candidates put forth by the Jamesburg Republican party.
Raffetto did not respond to requests for comment, but it looks as though Emens will likely have to vacate the mayorship, and return to his — more powerful — position as Council President.
“My position is I want us to get this right for Jamesburg, because regardless of how this works … I want us to make the right decision so that we’re compliant with state law,” Emens told the ‘Prince’ before the council made a final decision.
He told the ‘Prince’ that he thinks political onlookers can often get too caught up in “palace
intrigue,” suggesting that who belongs in the positions is a less important matter. Emens maintains that his ultimate goal is to reimagine how the town handles its affairs, what he calls the “Jamesburg way.” He says this is in order to alleviate problems like infrastructure updates and budgetary issues due to payments of “salaries, wages, health benefits, pensions,” which means renegotiating contracts.
He described that the town’s current governance structure, “has led to an incentive structure of ‘I’m only going to do the bare minimum, and I know I’m going to get promoted’ … people don’t want to upset each other because in Jamesburg, everyone knows each other.”
“Nobody wants to go in and do hard negotiations, because you give your friend what they want so that everyone gets along. That’s the
kind of ‘Jamesburg way’ that I ran saying needs to change,” Emens said.
Looking forward, Emens will continue to balance wrapping up his senior year at Princeton with his responsibilities to his borough. He sees his learning at Princeton as being closely tied to his policy work. His experience entering the mayorship actually tied back to his senior independent work.
“My thesis is actually on how mayors manipulate taxes to get reelected,” Emens said. “I’m writing about mayors and their bad behavior, and I’m in the seat of one right now.“ Emens’ by-the-book behavior may come as no surprise.
Christopher Bao is an assistant News editor and the accessibility director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.
By Sena Chang & Charlie Roth News Contributor & Senior News Editor
During CNN’s election night, John King showed Jake Tapper a map of every state in which Kamala Harris outperformed Joe Biden. The map was blank.
Trump swept all seven swing states, and won the popular vote for the first time. The New York Times map showing shifts from the 2020 election shows a sea of red as counties across the country voted more red than they ever had.
In New Jersey, Kamala Harris received 51.3 percent of the vote to Donald Trump’s 46.2 percent as of publication. That 5.1 point difference is the closest margin between the Democrat and Republican candidates in the state since 1992, when Bill Clinton held a 2.4 point lead over George H.W. Bush — some have called these “swing state numbers.”
As for Mercer County, where Princeton is located, Harris handily beat Trump, but also by a smaller margin compared to the last election. The New York Times reports that Mercer County moved 6.3 points to the right in the 2024 Presidential election from 2020. According to the County Clerk’s still-unofficial election results, Kamala Harris holds a 33.7 point lead over Donald Trump. In 2020, however, Joe Biden held a 40 point lead.
While some pundits called the election results a “red wave,” some Democrats saw it differently. Princeton’s state Senator Andrew Zwicker, who is also the Head of Public Engagement and Workforce Development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), instead characterizes it as a “blue trough.”
The key for Zwicker’s characterization is not to look at the percentages but at the vote count. Whereas Trump’s number of votes went up 413 between the two elections, Harris had 15,582 fewer votes than Biden.
Experts noted that, in a stronghold Democratic state like New Jersey, many blue voters felt comfortable voicing their dissatisfaction with the Biden administration — and particularly its handling of inflation — by not voting or casting a ballot for Trump.
“Within these blue states, voters feel confident and safe in terms of social policy and other types of policies,” Dr. Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling (ECPIP), told The Daily Princetonian. “[Voters] are exercising their disagreement with Biden and the current administration by voting for Trump when they know that at home in the state, their rights will be protected.”
Others highlighted that the red wave was fueled by voter frustra-
tion with Democrats at both the state and national levels.
“People are frustrated. They’re frustrated with what’s happening in D.C. and happening in Trenton,” Rocco Riccio, the Hamilton Township Republican Club president, said. “Democrats have democratically controlled New Jersey for a significant seven-plus years, even in the state legislature, and this is a response to the economic and social issues that have overtaken our legislation.”
Hamilton is located in Mercer County, where Democrats held a 40-point lead in 2020 — a margin that narrowed to 34 points in 2024. This election cycle, Riccio said that the club focused on reaching out to young people and minority groups in an effort to “keep our people enthused to turn out.”
Having canvassed across New Jersey and Pennsylvania this election cycle, Nate Howard ’25, the president of New Jersey College Democrats, identified inflation as a key frustration for many voters. “It’s what a lot of polling has indicated, and it’s shown to be a strong anti-incumbent force in other countries,” he said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’
Howard also discussed the trend of incumbents losing elections during times of high inflation — a pattern Harris proved no exception to.
“We saw that the economy was
the number one issue on which people were basing their vote choice within New Jersey,” Koning added.
New Jersey may also be evolving into a purple state.
“New Jersey has gained significantly with registered Republicans since 2021,” Riccio said. “It’s a 12 and-a-half percent increase … we see this gradual growth.”
Since the 2020 general election, GOP voter registration has surged ahead of Democratic registration by a three-to-one margin, with 49,270 new Republican voters added.
“We have some pretty deep pockets of red and some pretty deep pockets of blue within the state — quite the amalgamation of different demographics and socio-economic statuses,” Koning said, noting that the “blue state” label can lead people to overlook the state’s strong Republican base.
Cultural factors may also be in play. Spencer Kent, the lead reporter on N.J. Advance Media’s nine-month investigation into the rise of right-wing radicalism across New Jersey, pointed to underlying cultural factors driving the Republican vote.
“The ‘manosphere’ kind of masculinity has become such a big problem,” Kent said at an event titled “Going Far Right: Extremism in New Jersey” in Whig Hall on Nov. 12. According to Kent’s
reporting, instances of “racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and scapegoating for political gain” online have translated into extremism in real-life across the state.
“New Jersey is like any other state dealing with these issues across the country,” he added.
Zwicker, however, pins it on New Jersey seeking change.
“I think people who are moving to New Jersey and registering, or those who have decided to register for the first time, are looking and expressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo, and they clearly are demanding change,” Zwicker said. “That is an incredibly strong sign to New Jersey Democrats that if we do not focus on what we’re hearing from … then we’ve got serious, serious problems. But statewide industry Democrats have heard that and gotten the message now that we can deliver on that message in the next year, in the year after.”
A clearer view of the state’s political direction — and whether this red wave signals a lasting shift — will emerge in the 2025 gubernatorial elections, set to take place in about a year.
Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Charlie Roth is a senior News editor and assistant Data editor for The Daily Princetonian.
COURTESY OF LIZABETH GREER Thomas Emens ’25.
New courses being offered in Spring 2025
By Chima Oparaji Staff Data Writer
The University released the course offerings for Spring 2025 on Thursday, introducing 179 new offerings making 1,455 courses total as of Oct. 31 when spring courses dropped. The Daily Princetonian examined trends in course offerings from Spring 2024 to Spring 2025, highlighting notable shifts across various departments.
Freshman Seminars continue to dominate the new course landscape, maintaining the highest number of new offerings for both Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. However, there has been a decline in the number of these seminars, dropping from 22 new courses in Spring 2024 to 16 for Spring 2025.
The School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) saw a reduction in new courses offered this upcoming semester, breaking from a significant increase the previous spring. Four out of the six new SPIA offerings focus on topics in environmental and health sciences, such as SPI 407: Conserving Global Forests, which will address “whether the world should use more or less wood, and carefully evaluate various public and private policies.”
Conversely, departments such as History, Visual Arts, and particularly English have experienced a surge in new courses since Spring 2024. The Visual Arts department has consistently had almost all of its course slots filled, and students have opined that classes are difficult to get into. Out of the 29 visual art classes students have to choose from for next semester, about 20 percent of them are new.
The English department, in particular, has seen a noteworthy rise in 300-level courses, aligning with a broader trend observed from Spring 2023 to Spring 2024, where upper-level courses emerged as the most common new offerings — aside from freshmen seminars.
The Literature and the Arts (LA) distribution requirement is satisfied by 237 out of 767 total courses for the spring semester. Conversely, the Science and Engineering with Lab (SEL) and Epistemology and Cognition (EC) distribution requirements are met by just 36 and 39 new courses, respectively.
In the past, student groups, such as Princeton Caribbean Connection (PCC) and Natives at Princeton, have asked for increased representation in course selection.
“A lot of the classes are centered on the historization of the Caribbean. You wouldn’t see frameworks of modern day society as you see in SPIA,” said Kimberly Cross ’25, marketing and publicity chair of the PCC, on the lack of parts of the Caribbean being represented in academia.
“You wouldn’t see attitudes of Caribbean men as an anthropology class,” Cross continued. “It kind of puts the Caribbean in this stagnant space where you’re only viewing it from this antique avenue,” she said.
According to Cross and Mya Ramhi ’26, co-president of PCC, a new Haitian Creole class is being created for the Fall 2025 semester.
“This is something that has made PCC pretty excited and encouraged to keep doing the work they’re doing on campus,” said Ramhi.
Another new offering for Spring 2025 is AMS 262: Race, Indigeneity, and Environment, a course that explores the environment as a catalyst for social action. This course delves into how ecological changes both influence and are influenced by the structures of race and indigeneity. Through a blend of historical and contemporary examples, students will examine the “intersections of race and indigeneity in the context of ecological transformation in the United States, particularly as experienced by Native peoples.”
Princeton is now offering a 200 level African American Studies Class titled “This is Critical Race Theory.” The course description highlights how its goal is to teach students the actual framework of the theory, especially in the context of the civil rights movement. The course explores how “antipathy toward ‘Critical Race Theory’ has led policymakers to restrict curriculum, ban books, and even fire teachers.”
None of the new courses offered are within the South Asian Studies department, and less than one percent of the new offerings center on South Asia. Students have expressed a desire for the South Asian Studies department to develop a more robust curriculum, comparable to other regional studies at Princeton.
A full list of course offerings can be found on the Office of the Registrar website.
Chima Oparaji is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Contributing Data Writer Hassan Khan contributed reporting.
Catch a plane across the globe with these Spring 2025 courses
By Vincent Etherton Staff Data Writer
“Travel is one of the great experiences that Princeton offers,” Humanities Professor Sandra Bermann wrote to The Daily Princetonian. “It inevitably expands and deepens a student’s understanding of texts, times and places, as it also provides a great opportunity for ongoing discussion, new questions, and the sharing of ideas and encounters that creates lasting friendships.”
In Spring 2025, Princeton will offer at least six courses that have a significant travel component as part of the course description. Three of these will travel internationally to destinations like France and Panama and will offer a maximum of 56 students the opportunity to travel abroad. Another 25 can take courses that leave the contiguous United States. All courses with designated international destinations and distant national travel require applications and departmental permission. These courses were found by searching “travel” or “trip” on the Registrar’s course offerings page. In
Fall 2024, five courses offered international travel experiences.
Of the three courses with an international travel component — HUM 423, SPA 204, and FRE 354 — two give students the opportunity to visit France, and one to either Ecuador or Colombia. EEB 338: Tropical Biology, a three-week course, is offered for department juniors enrolled in the Semester in the Field Program hosted in Panama. It is the first of four courses students take while in Panama.
HUM 423: Poetry and War — Translating the Untranslatable explores the poetry and life of a major French Resistance leader, René Char. The course offers a spring break trip to France to view manuscripts and follow Char’s wartime migration, led by Bermann and accompanied by the poet’s widow and editor
“Since the natural world is essential to Char’s poetic vision, our trip into the countryside offers powerful insight not only into wartime events but also into his ‘eco-poetic’ writing,” Bermann wrote.
SPA 204: Spanish for a Medical Caravan, reinforces fluency in the Spanish language in a medical context with much
of the course focusing on preparation for the week-long medical caravan trip in either Ecuador or Colombia.
“While we discuss the health system and its challenges in class, being on the ground — witnessing firsthand the impact of systemic issues like politics, racism, and barriers to healthcare access — brings the theory to life in a much more powerful way,” Professor Paloma Moscardó-Vallés wrote to the ‘Prince.’
The course has received high praise in Registrar course evaluations, averaging a 4.88 score out of five in the past four semesters the course was offered. The other three courses offering international travel follow the same trend with high reviews and an average rating no lower than a 4.75. The average rating of all Spring 2025 courses is 4.27.
“I really enjoyed this class!” wrote one student in the Spring 2024 course reviews. “The trip over spring break was also amazing!”
Two courses include participation in a trip to U.S. states outside the contiguous United States. AMS 325: Pacific Archives and Indigenous Cosmologies in-
corporates a mandatory trip to Juneau, Ala. during spring break and GEO 369: Environmental Materials Chemistry — Researching in Field and Laboratory requires a trip to Hawaii for seven to eight days at the end of the semester.
AMS 325 is a three-hour long seminar that meets once a week. The course reexamines American literary history through Indigenous creation stories and cosmologies from the Pacific Coast.
GEO 369 explores field sampling techniques and analytical lab work to test materials found in the Earth’s surface environments. The course has the lowest enrollment limit of the travel courses with a maximum enrollment of ten people.
Applications for international and non-contiguous U.S. travel courses are due between Nov. 20–22, before course selection starts on Dec. 3. Course applications include questions related to previous coursework and the student’s interest in the course.
Vincent Etherton is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Faculty, expand voting access for a more democratic process
Gillat Kol & Peter Ozsvath Associate Professor of Computer Science & Professor of Mathematics
The following is an open letter and reflects the authors’ views alone.
We write in support of the proposal to broaden faculty engagement in University governance by enabling remote voting and urge faculty to vote in favor during the voting period.
Currently, faculty decisions are made through in-person votes at faculty meetings. Under this proposal, when a motion passes at a faculty meeting, any six faculty members may request a full faculty remote vote.
When this occurs, the University will distribute written statements from supporters and opponents, giving the faculty 10 business days to deliberate, discuss, and vote electronically. Although the proposal passed by a significant margin at the last faculty meeting, six faculty members have invoked the new provision — a step explicitly allowed by our proposal — which now brings the motion to a full faculty vote.
The proposal for remote faculty voting addresses practical barriers
to democratic participation, ensuring that as many well-informed voices are included as possible. Faculty members may be unable to attend meetings for various reasons, including professional and personal obligations, travel, sabbatical leave, or unexpected illness. The current setup especially disenfranchises parents, as meetings start at 4:30 p.m. to avoid overlapping with classes and can easily extend beyond daycare hours.
In a recent Opinion piece, some faculty suggested that those passionate about an issue should make the effort to attend. However, we believe that requiring faculty to choose between voting and their other commitments just to prove their dedication is unnecessary and dilutes the democratic process. Just as the United States allows mail-in voting — and often several days of early in-person voting — in presidential elections to accommodate diverse circumstances, we should similarly offer remote voting for faculty.
The proposal does not replace the current in-person process but builds on it. Faculty discussions will proceed as usual, and if a full remote vote is triggered, these discussions will be supplemented with written statements summarizing both perspectives. This new system would provide additional time for reflection and discussion. It will
foster greater faculty engagement, which is otherwise difficult due to logistical challenges. It’s unrealistic to find a time that suits everyone, large venues are scarce, and in-person discussions are often cut short by time constraints. This approach would also strengthen our voting process, as typical faculty meeting attendance ranges from 5–30 percent, granting a disproportionate influence to a small group of attendees.
We expect this mechanism to be used sparingly, reserved for special issues. Monthly faculty meetings often serve ceremonial functions, such as welcoming new members and receiving committee reports. However, there are rare times when an issue arises that captures the attention of a much larger portion of the voting body. Sometimes, these are practical matters impacting schedules, like the University’s decision to end the fall semester before winter break. They may involve formal changes, like the current measure, that affect Princeton’s decisionmaking process.
Other times, they touch on deeply felt issues connected to our core values, such as international conflicts. In all these cases, increased participation would make our decisions more inclusive, robust, and representative. We ask faculty to follow the link from the Dean of the
Faculty from an email titled “Electronic Vote on Approved Faculty Measure” and submit a “yes” vote to support the motion.
Signed,
Gillat Kol, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Peter Ozsvath, Professor of Mathematics
Leslie M. Schoop, Professor of Chemistry
Neta Bahcall, Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy, Professor of Astrophysical Sciences
Simon Levin, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Yair Mintzker, Behrman Professor in the Humanities Council, Professor of History
Dan Rubenstein, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology Emeritus
Princeton must have no truck with Hegseth ’03
Jonathan Ort Guest Contributor
The last time an alum was appointed to head the Pentagon, our community was all too happy to sing his praises. The alum, of course, was neocon darling Donald Rumsfeld ’54. Two months after 9/11, Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) peddled the mythos that Rumsfeld had come to command: a “wrestler, pilot, and organizer extraordinaire,” he would “lead the U.S. defense department into perhaps its toughest fight ever.” Earlier this week, Presidentelect Donald Trump nominated Pete Hegseth ’03 to be Secretary of Defense. Hegseth, a combat veteran and Fox News host, is manifestly unfit to lead the U.S. military, often called the world’s most powerful. Hegseth’s threadbare résumé, his decorated service notwithstanding, is least among the
mountain of reasons that should disqualify him.
Hegseth is part and parcel of the bone-chilling tide that triumphed at the ballot box last week. He has showered praise on Jan. 6 insurrectionists and lobbed racist insults against the nation’s highest-ranking officer, whom he promises to fire. He has demanded that the Pentagon bar women from combat and declared, “the rules of war are for winners.” During Trump’s first term in office, Hegseth successfully pressed him to pardon U.S. soldiers charged with war crimes.
No wonder Trump has demanded that the Senate forego hearings to vet his cabinet nominees. Hegseth exemplifies the fascistic cabal that will soon control the White House and Congress. It is hard to interpret his outrageous nomination as anything but the keystone in Trump’s drive to compel loyalty from his underlings — and to wield the military against his foes. Presuming Hegseth glides to
the Pentagon’s helm, what will we say about this member of our ranks? If history is any teacher, the answer does not inspire confidence.
Princeton had burnished Rumsfeld’s reputation long before he entered the Pentagon triumphant. I have argued that Nassau Hall tracked Rumsfeld’s rise — and he reciprocated in kind. As Rumsfeld made waves in Washington, Princeton gave him the Woodrow Wilson Award, its highest alumni honor, in 1985.
In his acceptance speech, Rumsfeld likened his start in politics to a Princeton reunion. Princeton dutifully recognized its ascendant son — who, right on cue, extolled the best damn place of all. In 2004, as he stood credibly accused of war crimes and mere weeks after the first photos of torture at Abu Ghraib had leaked, Rumsfeld nevertheless enjoyed a “good reception” at his 50th reunion.
Princeton has likewise figured in Hegseth’s rise. As has been widely reported, Hegseth spent his undergraduate years publishing racist, misogynistic, and homophobic hate in The Princeton Tory. But for one example: he ran a Tory cover in 2002 that superimposed crosshairs over an owl, representing the Organization of Women Leaders (OWL). The table of contents shows the owl crumpled on its side — three bullet holes blown into its head and blood pouring forth.
Such provocations did not dissuade PAW from holding Hegseth in high esteem. In fact, PAW granted Hegseth — who had recently served a tour in Iraq — his own byline in 2006. He used the
platform to argue, “contrary to conventional thinking inside the government and the military,” that the U.S. should deploy more troops.
In its Nov. 2007 issue, PAW included Hegseth in a feature about ROTC alumni who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The front cover? A photo of Hegseth, with camouflage and Princeton ballcaps arranged before him and a uniform and beer jacket draped behind. “Pete Hegseth ’03, with reminders of life as a former soldier and alum,” the caption read.
A web exclusive accompanying the issue notes Hegseth “had just completed a year at Guantanamo Bay, doing security patrols.” Hegseth’s stint at the naval base — which houses the illegal torture camp that Rumsfeld helped create — had led him to question his service: “After the boredom of that assignment,” PAW confesses, “he thought he’d never want to put on his uniform again.” With respect to the torture of detainees and denial of due process at Guantanamo, Hegseth has claimed, “we bend over backwards as Americans to provide for the welfare of these radical Islamic terrorists.”
Subscribe Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now » By PAW’s account, news of a suicide bombing in Iraq reignited Hegseth’s desire to serve. “I learned a lot of theory at Princeton,” Hegseth told PAW, apparently in reference to his Politics degree. “[N]one of it matters,” Hegseth cautioned, “if you cannot provide security. Guns and violence have the potential to override any theory, no matter how sound.” Talk about
clairvoyance.
In 2018, Hegseth created a “Fox and Friends” segment about the James Madison Program (JMP), the campus hub for right-wing politics. The clip celebrates Robert George, Princeton’s conservative doyen and Hegseth’s former professor.
As the segment closes, Hegseth begins to say, “I’m proud of my —” but stops himself short. Instead of “alma mater,” he pivots: “the James Madison Program. Princeton doesn’t do everything right all the time, but Robby George does a nice job.”
Despite the bonhomie, Hegseth has helped wage the right-wing assault on higher education. In a 2022 broadcast, Hegseth defaced his diploma from Harvard, where he had received an MPP. He crossed out “Harvard” and scrawled “Critical Theory” in its place. For good measure, he marred the parchment with “Return to Sender.”
Hegseth has, notably, declined to give his undergraduate diploma the same treatment. When someone on air advised, “Go grab that Princeton diploma,” Hegseth responded, “Not yet, not yet, not yet.”
Hegseth might still see utility in his alma mater. Does Princeton see the same in him? Will Hegseth get a hero’s welcome come reunions? Will he one day receive the Woodrow Wilson Award? What is clear is that Hegseth imperils the very existence of our University — and the rule of law. Princeton must have no truck with him.
Jonathan Ort ’21 served as The Daily Princetonian’s
LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Richardson Auditorium
Princeton’s young alumni are no longer donating, and for a good reason
They may have the sense of entitlement,” Larry Leighton ’56 writes of young Princeton alumni who donate at rates far lower than their predecessors. “[T]here seems to be very little knowledge of the importance of philanthropy generally.” In recent years, many alumni have penned “giving pleas” of a similar vein, bemoaning the dying culture of annual giving. But is the reality truly as terrible as these alumni assume it to be?
For many alumni, Princeton’s endowment is a shared point of pride. This sentiment is completely understandable — after all, it was the contributions of their classes that built and ballooned the endowment that we know today.
Yet in recent years, younger alumni have demonstrated a marked decrease in charitable donations, and especially when compared to that of previous classes.
Although there may be a manifold of reasons as to why, more and more students have reduced their giving out of concerns about whether the endowment’s investments continue to line up with their values, along with the underlying recognition that the University is no longer sustained on the backs of alumni contributions. Instead of levying accusations towards these young people and charging them with claims of entitlement or ignorance, the University should take their concerns seriously and work to earn their donations in the future.
The amount raised during annual giving is frankly staggering. Across the nation, the University frequently ranks first in terms of alumni donations among post-secondary institutions. Compared to the national average donation rate of 8 percent, Princeton boasts an impressive average percentage of 46 percent across all classes. Its most recent 2023–24 Annual Giving campaign was enormously successful, raising a total of nearly $67 million. Not only do these statistics rank among the top ten highest totals in Annual Giving history, but they further align with a growing trend: over the past couple of years, Princeton has witnessed a stupendous increase in donations, and recordbreaking highs of nearly $100 million.
But the pool of donors is noticeably decreasing. While older alumni have spearheaded efforts to boost class participation, younger graduates have fallen significantly behind. In particular, since the 2000s, the quantity of donations from successive graduating classes have gradually diminished over time. As contributions dwindled, participation has, too. At the turn of the century, donor participation among the five youngest classes ranked at nearly 60 percent. Compare this to the class of 2022, where only 31 percent gave upon graduation. And much of this drop-off came very recently: 52 percent of the class of 2018 made a charitable giving following their graduation. If it was any other institution, it might be easy to disregard this shift. After all, it is a well-acknowledged fact that younger alumni tend to lack the same degree of financial generosity as their older peers. However, this is not the case at Princeton. As alumni like Larry Leighton ’56 have recounted, the University has always flaunted strong rates of philanthropic turnout due to strong cultural expectations of how a Princetonian education was meant to be “paid forward” for the next generation. Accordingly, this new phenomenon cannot merely be attributed to the natural trends of donation cycles. Rather,
this trend represents the beginning of a new structural generational divide in class contributions. As has been written time and time again, the University does not require alumni donations to sustain its current operations. After all, donations notwithstanding, Princeton’s financial footing is nothing if not secure. Although recent voices have expressed concern for the investment losses of 2023 and successive low endowment gains in 2024, the University’s endowment continues to persevere at $34.1 billion strong and an annual rate of return of 10.8 percent. Even in challenging economic conditions, the University did not face much in terms of financial hardship and estimates for the endowment return continue to project long-term growth.
This is not to say that Princeton’s alumni participation is entirely devoid of meaning. As stakeholders with a vested interest in the institution, their donations continue to supplement a small percentage of the operating budget and promote continued engagement therein. However, the lacking donations among younger alumni are not as great of a concern as older generations have perhaps framed them out to be. As mentioned above, the University is no longer sustained by the generosity of its alumni and accordingly, it’s entirely understand-
able that younger graduates do not feel compelled to make a contribution.
If the University still seeks to financially mobilize its youngest alumni, they are not entirely out of options. Principally, Princeton should also take it upon themselves to be more responsive to movements and petitions of the student body. In recent years, socio-political movements have exerted significant influence on alumni decisions to donate. At present, 3,266 Princeton students, faculty, alumni, and parents have pledged to withhold donations due to Princeton’s investments in fossil fuels. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, many alumni further refused to donate as a means of political protest against the school’s convoluted investiture ties with Israel.
Perhaps, if young graduates felt a stronger alignment with the University’s values and stated interests, a greater sense of philanthropy could be fostered among the student body. However at present, the donor participation of younger alumni is falling short — and that’s okay.
Wynne Conger is a sophomore and prospective SPIA major from Bryn Mawr, Pa. She can be reached by email at wc2918@princeton.edu. Her column “Popping the Bubble” runs every three weeks on Friday.
Trump supporters don’t bite: Princeton progressives must burst the Orange Bubble
As I walked through the Election Watch Party at Whig-Clio on Election Night last week, I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. The red wave came as a surprise to most people at Princeton, including myself. Donald Trump won all seven swing states and became the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. Republicans also now control the Senate and won eight out of 13 gubernatorial races. At Princeton, there is a stereotype of the classic Trump voter: hateful, uneducated, racist, and transphobic. Sitting at an Ivy League institution where a pre-election poll found that 74 percent of eligible undergrads cast votes for Harris, it’s easy to think that people don’t vote for Trump unless there is something really messed up about the way they see the world — but Princeton’s favorable view of the Democrats is an outlier. Voters under 30 shifted right in this year’s election, where Harris had only a 5 point advantage, as opposed to Biden’s 25. We shouldn’t dismiss Trump voters as hateful, uned-
ucated, or misinformed; we should engage with them about where they are coming from and why they made the choice they did.
The 2024 election broke many records. A Republican presidential candidate won the 97 percent Hispanic Starr County in Texas for the first time since 1892. Anson County, North Carolina, which has a 40 percent black population, backed a Republican twice since Reconstruction: Richard Nixon in 1972 and Donald Trump in 2024. Women broke for Harris by only half as much as they did for Biden in 2020. Harris won my home state of New Jersey by only 4 points, which Clinton won by 14 points in 2016 and Biden won by 16 points in 2020. Yet at Princeton, these national statistics are not reflected in the community.
It’s difficult to be at Princeton and see beyond the Orange Bubble. Nassau Street has always been overpriced, but the price of living within Princeton’s campus has remained more or less consistent. For example, it still only takes $7 to bring a guest for lunch at my eating club, which is not reflective of the prices in the rest of the country. Across the board, economic issues, such as inflation and the rising cost of living, are impacting Americans in a far more significant way that Princeton students on campus are not impacted by. In Nevada, a state that Trump won for the first time and where registered nonpartisans outnumbered voters of either party, trusted Trump to fix the economy. Friends and neighbors back home who voted red also large-
ly cited kitchen-table issues, such as the soaring price of eggs and gas. The streets of Princeton are extremely safe, and PSAFE is available and watchful in the dead of night. In contrast, I have spent three of my Princeton summers in Washington, D.C. There were many points in which I did not feel safe, even in broad daylight. I heard from residents that things had felt much safer four or five years ago before Washington’s city council moved to cut the police department’s budget, following the death of George Floyd. It is not hard to think that voters in even very Democratic cities have noticed a shift and voted red based on the desire to bring back safer neighborhoods. In California, Proposition 36 passed a ballot measure, which would increase penalties for repeated theft and certain drug crimes, including fentanyl.
According to Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey conducted on May 1, 2024, 38 percent of Americans say they are very conservative or conservative on social issues, up from 33 percent last year. This percentage is the highest it has been since 2012. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who say their social views are very liberal or liberal has dropped to 29 percent, from 34 percent in the last two years. The survey also found that 44 percent of Americans say they’re economically conservative, which is the highest it has been since 2012. By contrast, only 11.1 percent of the incoming Class of 2028 described themselves as somewhat or very conservative. When there is such a huge
discrepancy between Princeton’s campus and the rest of the country, it may be easy to overlook minority views at Princeton. Consequently, the way that Princeton students think about politics can be very divorced from the rest of the country: often, the rhetoric that might do well on this campus does not fly with the rest of America. This makes it even more important for us to have conversations with those we perceive to be a minority.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) recently said, “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face.”
“I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or a formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that,” he concluded.
Moulton certainly did not vote for Trump, but his concerns are echoed by many parents nationwide. The desire to better afford basic necessities, live in safer neighborhoods, and protect one’s children are not crazy or irrational desires. Take the time to look around at some of your peers within Princeton, and to the communities that you may not be as familiar with outside as well. “I voted for Donald Trump,” and “I’m excited for the next four years,” should not be a reason to dehumanize or overlook that person but perhaps an opportunity for communication and understanding.
Julianna Lee is a senior from Demarest, N.J., majoring in Politics. She can be reached at julianna.lee@princeton.edu. Julianna is a big fan of road trips and has been to 43 states. Lee’s column, “To Old Nassau,” runs every three weeks on Tuesdays.
Julianna Lee Columnist
TO OLD NASSAU
Wynne Conger Associate Opinion Editor
Who really cared about the encampment? Maybe just the ‘Prince’
Abigail Rabeih Public Editor
The following is a column from the public editor. If you have questions or concerns regarding the paper’s coverage and standards or would like to see her cover a particular issue, please contact publiceditor@dailyprincetonian.com.
The Daily Princetonian used over 50,000 words to detail three weeks of protest action in McCosh courtyard, Cannon Green, and the surrounding areas. Between April 25 and May 17, the ‘Prince’ published 17 pieces with the word “encampment” in the title to describe how students, faculty, and individuals unrelated to the University administered an encampment in an effort to force Princeton to take action with respect to the warfare in Gaza. 10 of these were live update pages, in which writers provided frequent reports on the actions of the protesters while observing the encampment 24 hours a day.
As similar forms of activism proliferated on campuses across the country, other student papers did the same: The Harvard Crimson published live updates of the encampment in Harvard Yard for three days, as did the Yale Daily News, while The Daily Pennsylvanian provided live encampment updates over eight days. At one point, even The New York Times provided a live tracker as police arrested those occupying a Columbia University building. Despite all this coverage, there are many lingering questions about the protests that spread across America’s colleges last spring. What drove students nationwide to risk their hireability, their degrees, and their safety? Why have their efforts to force universities to “divest and disassociate from Israel” largely failed? And to what extent were the protesters’ actions representative of the college student’s political mindset today?
It is the last question which interests me the most because you will not find the answer in the stories that this newspaper publishes. Just from reading the ‘Prince,’ especially last spring, it would seem that the Israel-Hamas war was the foremost issue on college students’ minds. This was far from the case — when the ‘Prince’ polled students on their top concerns prior to the 2024 presidential election, few voters — for Trump or for Harris — identified the war as a priority. Why then, did the ‘Prince’ act as if last spring’s encampment deserved a huge amount of time, resources, and words to cover?
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment was, in some ways, a unique and notable event for the Princeton community. It was the longest sit-in in University history. From the beginning, the protest joined a national movement of anti-Israel advocacy that appeared to be following in the tradition of 1968’s anti-war protests, which were a “revolution” for the nation. Most crucially, PSAFE arrested two graduate
students minutes after the encampment began.
Bridget O’Neill ’26, a head News editor at the ‘Prince,’ noted in an interview that these arrests defined the high stakes of the protest.
“The first thing that happens when the encampment starts is [that] there’s the arrest of two students … this hasn’t happened during a protest since the 70s,” she said.
For O’Neill, the fact that the University police was arresting — and could continue to arrest — its students demonstrated that the encampment was going to be an unprecedented event for Princetonians and thus deserved unprecedented attention from the student newspaper.
“Being there for those moments was really important to us because they were big moments that we needed to cover, and we were never sure when they were going to happen,” O’Neill said, explaining why the ‘Prince’ kept reporters on site at the protest 24 hours a day for over 10 days, something it had never done before.
The nature of the University’s rules surrounding sit-ins also influenced the decision of ‘Prince’ editors to engage in live coverage. Since the University declared sleeping outside to be a violation of its rules, Annie Rupertus ’25, O’Neill’s co-head News editor, explained that editors deemed overnight observation necessary to ensure that no action was missed by reporters.
“It really felt like there was always a chance that someone could be arrested … I think it would have been a huge mistake if we hadn’t been there for those moments,” Rupertus said. “It was important to us to be monitoring everything at all times.”
But for the 10 days that the ‘Prince’ published daily live tracking pages, no such event occurred. The nights were mostly described as “quiet,” and no further arrests of students engaging in the sit-in occurred. Of course, the ‘Prince’ could not have known how the protest would play out: that it would be mostly uninteresting. Yet decisions to cover events can carry sincere consequences: the result of needless reporting is not always boring stories. Overinvolved reporting can, in fact, result in real harm.
By engaging in frenzied coverage, the ‘Prince’ contributed to the construction of a narrative that the fabric of the campus was torn apart by the encampment and helped create an environment in which advocacy for a change of the status quo in Gaza seemed to be the biggest issue on everybody’s minds. But this was not an accurate picture of what students experienced in Spring 2024. One article captured this well: Though protesters called on the Undergraduate Student Government to cancel Lawnparties, Princeton’s spring concert, the event continued to the general delight of students.
It’s one thing to have a reporter on the scene, in case something noteworthy occurs, but it’s another to publish reporting — constantly — when news is not actually occurring. Day seven of the encampment coverage, for example, is mostly a list of times at which student groups released statements in support of the encampment. For any student on campus, this article was probably unnecessary, as we all received each of those statements in our email inboxes. On the other hand,
for readers off-campus, portraying each email and film screening as a happening necessitating a live update turned them into things of interest. Tracking each so-called event live — even if that was just the sending of an email — legitimized them as deserving of attention, contributing to the aims of the protests and amplifying its goals rather than reporting on news — when news exists — in an unbiased way.
The perception of the encampment as a momentous occasion was perhaps influenced by the close relationship between members of the ‘Prince’ and members of the encampment. Student journalists consistently struggle with the fact that they are closely intertwined with the communities they cover, and student newspapers can never fully remove themselves from the social life of a college campus and the subsequent relationships that arise. The fact that several editors at the ‘Prince’ engaged in the encampment was beyond the pale for an organization invested in pursuing truth to maintain a healthy community. I believe that the continued membership in the ‘Prince’ of people involved in the encampment inadvertently shaped — and continues to shape — how the paper covers the Israel-Hamas war and University policy related to activism, among other key issues.
Participants were not allowed to report or edit for the ‘Prince’ while encamping. Nevertheless, their involvement has undermined the reputation of the ‘Prince,’ both then and now. Readers, many of whom are students and could identify editors among the protesters, were left confused about the separation between the paper and its reporting subjects — was the ‘Prince’ engaging in neutral coverage or amplifying an issue that was important to many of its members? During the encampment, the focus on maintaining a furious publication pace meant that the identity of protesters was not always made clear, and the paper even published photos of our editors engaging in protest action without identifying them. Today, these editors, clearly uncommitted to pursuing an unbiased narrative of the world, remain on the masthead.
Reporters who conceive of their role as one of an activist represent a rising issue in journalism. Perceiving the world objectively is, for many, no longer a priority. Rather, they aim to further a narrative in which justice and righteousness has been predetermined and report accordingly. Biases can never be eliminated from a newsroom, but allowing those who prioritize struggling for change over impartial reporting significantly worsens the problem. Where it is possible, the ‘Prince’ must seek disciplined staff and editors who are willing to deeply investigate the truth rather than act as if they already know it. Otherwise, an activist perspective towards journalism will become normative at the paper — if it isn’t already.
The ‘Prince’ is not always cognizant of how it presents itself to its readers — something which must be on the forefront of a good paper’s mind. Trust in reportage is not innate, and readers will reevaluate a publication constantly. Commitments to objectivity — and transparency about when it might be significantly compromised — is crucial so that read-
ers can have enough information to accurately judge whether a story is true. Unfortunately, the truth is often obfuscated because journalists fear that the full reality — including moments of error or admittance of uncertainty — will lead to disbelief and lack of trust. Nowhere is the problem of promoting an image of certainty and constant reliability over honesty more clear than in the encampment story that the ‘Prince’ did not cover.
After several students entered Clio Hall to begin an occupation of the building, student journalists were asked to leave by the police and complied. The absence of reporters in Clio Hall is one of the reasons that, to this day, questions persist about what went on within. Those who are interested in the truth have two prevailing narratives on which to rely that directly oppose each other: one from professor Ruha Benjamin, who initially had joined student occupants demanding divestment but exited the building 30 minutes before arrests of students began, and the other from Vice President of Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun, who described the events based on the negative experiences of staff and police. While Benjamin maintains that the protest was peaceful and legitimate, Calhoun painted a different picture, condemning the actions of the protestors as “unacceptable” and “abusive” towards staff.
“I think it’s very unfortunate that the University made that choice to close it off to student journalists,” Rupertus said. She added that the presence of student journalists would have allowed the ‘Prince’ to accurately tell the community what happened inside.
The truth about Clio Hall is known — just not by the public. There is body camera footage from PSAFE officers inside that has yet to be released. The ‘Prince’ could not have acted differently in the moment, as the safety of student reporters must be a priority for a student newspaper. But perhaps this problem of lacking information can be the biggest lesson for ‘Prince.’ Cultivating relationships with those in power and publicizing when they fail to be transparent are some of the most important missions of a newspaper. Yet the absence of the ‘Prince’ inside the most newsworthy event of the encampment was never really reckoned with. There has never been an honest communication to our readers detailing our own lack of knowledge and the limits of our reporting. It is a glaring absence that the ‘Prince’ has never published an article on how exactly, and why, student journalists were barred from Clio or on the so-far-unsuccessful processes of releasing body camera footage to the public.
Instead, the ‘Prince’ made it a priority to explain how Princeton treated other students in its coverage. During my conversation with O’Neill and Rupertus, both emphasized that their interest in covering the encampment was much less about the actual aims of the protesters, but rather in examining the interaction between the University and its students.
“It was really interesting for us to compare how our University was responding compared to other universities and how our students were acting compared to other students, like it’s part of a much bigger conver-
sation,” Rupertus said, adding that Princeton was mostly alone among the nation’s higher education institutions in barring students from sleeping outdoors.
Rupertus and O’Neill agreed that the encampment, along with the administrative and disciplinary processes it spawned, was most important to the Princeton community for its depiction of the relationship between the administration and students.
“Here’s this encampment, it’s this big spectacle, but this is how it directly relates to the functions of the University and how it’s gonna affect you then too, as a student here,” O’Neill said, describing why she felt the reporting was important for all students, whether they were aware of the encampment or not.
I think, however, that few would agree with this characterization of the encampment. Covering events as symbols for what a reporter thinks they represent — not the reality of what they are — is a dangerous game: It disrespects the subjects of reporting and opens the door for speculation and fiction when objectivity and truth are key. It appears impossible to separate the nature of recent activism from what it is advocating for — divestment from and the breakage of ties with the world’s only Jewish state. The way in which the University handles demands for change from students has become a recent obsession for the ‘Prince.’ But where is the interrogation of how students demand change? In coverage of the encampment, the ‘Prince’ constantly sought to push past the face value of what the administration said, but I’m not sure that this was really attempted with student speech or action. Did the ‘Prince’ sufficiently question the actions, aims, and motivations of protesters? Journalists often use the maxim that they should punch up — and not down — to guide their work, meaning that they should seek to question those in power and hold them accountable for missteps. But sometimes those without obvious power make missteps too, which can significantly hurt people around them. The ‘Prince’ must recommit to seriously inquiring into these dimensions of noteworthy events as well.
Critiquing the past is always a dangerous endeavor, for the teleological perspective is all too easy to follow. But the paper did real harm by stoking the flames of a frenzy that left campus mostly unchanged. Despite my insistence that most students were unbothered by and unconcerned with the encampment, it was certainly a prominent part of my semester: hearing students call for an intifada, watching one raise the flag of a terrorist cell devoted to killing Jews, and seeing friends turn hostile in an attempt to force action I consider unjust scared me and brought me to tears many times. Observing staff and editors of the ‘Prince’ — my coworkers — broadcast political ideologies while only interrogating the mechanism of their dissemination, and not the message, certainly did not help.
Abigail Rabieh is a senior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. She is the public editor at the ‘Prince’ and writes to address issues of journalistic quality and ethics.
The Prospect 11 Weekly Event Roundup
By Audrey Zeng, Contributing Writer for The Prospect
1 “Cholla”Nov. 22 and Nov. 23 at7:30 p.m., Nov. 24 at2 p.m. Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts complex “Cholla”isan original play written and directedby Daniel Viorica’25.Set inNew Mexico, 1982,the playisa storyof family reconciliation. Rachel,the protagonist, returnstoher family— after leaving20 yearsago—to revealher sister’s secret. She faces theresentment simmeringinher family and finds away towards reconciliation. The showis free and opentothe public, though advance ticketsare required. Ticketscanbe purchased through University Ticketingat tickets.princeton.edu.
AdventConcert: “IAmWaiting” Nov. 24at 2:30 p.m. Princeton University Chapel The Chapel Choir’s concert, with Directorof Chapel MusicNicole Aldrich and University Organist Eric Pluz, features musicbyJ.S. Bach and the world premiereof The Princeton Motets (AndI Saw). This eventis free,unticketed, and opento the public.
51959: specialAveryyear inJazz! Nov.23at2p.m.
TaplinAuditorium,Fine Hall rectedPrincetonJazzVocalEnsemble,divariousbyMichelleLordi,willperform jazzpiecesfrom1959.TheensembleincludesPrincetonstudentsacross classyearsandaimstopromoteasocialand historicalunderstandingofjazz,personal creativity,andastrongmusicalfoundationin itsmembers.Thiseventisfreeandunticketed.
8Poetic Record: Photography ina Transformed World a.m.–8OpenthroughDec.5from10 p.m.;closedNov.28for Thanksgiving HurleyGallery,LewisArtscomplex Famighetti,Co-curatedbyDeanaLawsonandMichael editor-in-chiefofAperturemagaartists.zine,thisexhibitionfeatures23photo-based Itexplores“thepoeticsofphotography, itsinstability,anditslatentpotential”andisopen tothepublic.
4
2024PrincetonDanceFestival
3“Don’t Tell TheAnybodySecrets” Show MatthewsNov.22at7:30p.m.Theatre,McCarter Theatre
Women’s basketball beats Villanova to take home opener
By Max Hines & Bridget O’Neill Senior Sports Writer & Sports Contributor
In Princeton’s first home game of the season, sophomore guard Ashley Chea led the Tigers (2–1 overall, 0–0 Ivy League) over the Villanova Wildcats (1–1 overall, 0–0 Big East), 70–61.
With Villanova quieting sophomore guard Skye Belker and junior guard Madison St. Rose for most of the game, the offensive responsibility fell on Chea’s shoulders, as she delivered her most effective performance to date.
“When [my teammates] put confidence in me, I try to exert that back out to them,” Chea told The Daily Princetonian postgame.
Winning the opening tip, senior forward Parker Hill got things started for the Tigers, scoring on a threepoint play to get the Tigers quickly up 3–0.
Villanova then settled in, finding an offensive rhythm behind guard Maddie Webber while succeeding defensively by forcing the Tigers away from St. Rose and Belker. Villanova’s defensive focus led to increased looks for Hill and junior forward Tabitha Amanze, who combined for nine of Princeton’s 16 first quarter points.
This rhythm was shortlived for the Tigers, though, as Amanze and Hill quickly fell into foul trouble. With the referees not afraid to blow the whistle, the aggressive Tiger defense bore the consequence of repeatedly sending Villanova to the charity stripe for easy points.
Princeton fell into a rut in the second quarter as the crowd of 925 fans quieted down. Belker broke the scoring silence with a crucial layup after nearly six minutes, giving them the momentum to net a few more points before heading into the half knotted at 28.
While the Tigers benefited from a balanced offense, Webber led the way for the Wildcats by scoring 12 of their 28 points, making up for a quiet afternoon from guard Bronagh Power-Cassidy, the leading scorer in their first game of the season.
In the locker room at the half, Princeton women’s basketball coach Carla Berube focused on controlling play and cleaning up the defense.
“They’re calling it pretty tight, so they’re a lot of fouls, and we just need to be a little bit more under control,” Berube told the team. “Let’s execute our offense that we’ve been working on for two months, three months and just settle things down.”
With a renewed focus on consistency, the Tigers’ offense began to kick into gear. While St. Rose and Belker were contained by the Wildcats’ defense, Chea stepped up, going on a run of her own to score seven points in the third quarter.
Chea also made big plays on defense and served as the Tigers’ primary point guard, a significant task for a player in the opening games of her sophomore season.
“She wants this, to be the leader, to be the floor general,” Berube said of Chea.
“We’re gonna have some ups and downs, and she just needs to stay the course because we have all the confidence in the world in her.”
While Villanova took the lead early in the third, the Jadwin crowd made their voices known as the tide turned for the Tigers. Forcing turnovers on the defensive half, St. Rose asserted her presence for the first time all day, scoring seven points as well. Behind St. Rose’s spark and Chea’s engine, Princeton embarked on a 15–2 run to take a commanding 51–39 lead towards the end of the third, with sustained offensive success for the first time all game making the difference in the win.
“They put a lot of pressure on us, especially on all of our point guards,” Chea said. “As the game went on, we looked more calm, and we set each other up for success.”
Although Princeton had found their stride, Villanova would not be counted out. Star first-year guard Jasmine Bascoe led the Wildcats on a 12–4 run, scoring 10 points to put the Wildcats just two points back with a little over six minutes left in the fourth, giving Princeton a strong early-season test of their ability to close games and forcing them into a timeout.
“We had to find what we were made of and find some resiliency,” Berube said.
Berube’s words in the huddle had an impact as the Tigers played clean basketball down the stretch, capitalizing on two offensive fouls from Bascoe and shooting
efficiently from the line on the other end. Stretching their lead to nine inside the last minute, the Tigers closed with confidence, going on to win 70–61.
While Webber had a game-high 23 points, Chea led the Tigers with 17. On the inside, Hill and Amanze combined for 18 points and 11 rebounds, the strongest performance yet from the forward duo.
“Parker and Tabbie did a great job in every aspect,” Chea said.
Berube noted an added emphasis on sending the offense through the paint this season, pushing her team to be aggressive and accurate from the freethrow line. Princeton has already improved in this area since their last game at DePaul.
“I think we can attack and get to the rim, and we have some size, so we want to get fouled,” Berube said.
“We want to make sure we get easy points off the line. We’re kind of finding our identity and our character, and so as that’s happening, you gotta dig deep in some of these games and find what you’re made of — who’s gonna step up?” Princeton continues their non-conference schedule with a road trip to Quinnipiac on Saturday. The Bobcats (2–0 overall, 0–0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) are fresh off a win over Harvard and will be another difficult nonconference matchup for Princeton.
“We are there for each other,” Chea said. “I think that’s one of the biggest things that we have learned over time.”
Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Max Hines is a senior Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
accept or reject? That was the question surrounding Ivan Boesky’s
By Ifeoluwa Aigbiniode Staff Archivist
On Nov. 18, 1986, The Daily Princetonian reported that Wall Street risk arbitrager Ivan Boesky had withdrawn his $1.5 million pledge to Princeton, half of which was intended to fund the construction of the Center for Jewish Life (CJL).
A few days earlier, Boesky had been fined $100 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after pleading guilty to one criminal charge of insider trading and was banned from working in the American securities industry. Bowen stated that this news raised “a
fair number of difficult issues” and could “undoubtedly, affect the relationship between Mr. Boesky and the University.”
The $750,000 pledge made to the CJL was the “only major pledge for the $2 million center.” Before Boesky withdrew the money, there was still debate around whether to accept it. At the time, Rabbi Edward Feld, then-director of Hillel at Princeton from 1973 to 1992, said that while “I see the whole thing as being very sad,” the University should not reject Boesky’s pledge.
In a recent interview, Feld stated that, at the time, there were considerations of accept-
ing Boesky’s donation as long as the building would not bear his name. He also recalled that Bowen “was absolutely assertive that the money had to be returned to Boesky, [as] Princeton could not at all use this money which had been gotten in a fraudulent way.”
Shortly after the withdrawal, an alum stepped forward to give several million dollars to continue the construction of the CJL. However, this new donation brought issues of its own. “That donor kept making more and more demands of what he would want to take place [after] giving the money and that became unacceptable to the
University,” Feld explained. After the second donor was rejected, other alums and parents funded the CJL, which opened in 1993.
Even today, there may be concerns about the ability of big donors to influence University policies and activities. However, Feld noted that the school does have its own say, telling the ‘Prince,’ “Princeton has a big enough endowment that it doesn’t have to kowtow to anybody in terms of giving up any part of its autonomy in how it’s going to run the University.”
Ifeoluwa Aigbiniode is a staff Archivist for the ‘Prince.’
MAX HINES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Chea leads the Princeton offense against Villanova at Jadwin Gym.
