A group of Princeton University students are pushing back against the protesters on campus that are demanding the administration bend to their will.
The student group, calling themselves the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, wrote a letter to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber. The students were seeking a meeting with Eisgruber in order to give their interpretation of the protests.
“We are concerned mainly with the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which all members of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse,” the group wrote. “Thanks to recent polls, surveys, and petitions, we have reason to believe that our concerns are shared by a majority of our fellow Princeton undergraduates.”
The group wrote they would “not occupy” the president’s office, as protesters had done the previous week, demanding Woodrow Wilson’s name be removed from campus buildings due to his racism. They also said they would conduct themselves “in the civil manner.”
The group said “many students” have told them they are “afraid to state publicly their opinions on recent events for fear of being vilified, slandered, and subjected to hatred, either by fellow students or faculty.”
Protesters at Princeton had been claiming the school fostered a racist environment, based on vague accusations and no noteworthy evidence. In addition to demands to remove Wilson’s name from the school, the protesters also wanted the leaders of individual colleges within the university to be called “head of the college” instead of “master,” because the latter reminded the protesters of slavery.
The campus opposition group wrote that “Many who questioned the protest were labeled racist, and black students who expressed disagreement with the protesters were called ‘white sympathizers’ and were told they were ‘not black.'” Though there is no evidence to back up those claims, no campus administrator has jumped to take them seriously, as they had with the racism accusations of the protesters.
The campus group asked to discuss with the president the methods of the protesters, which included occupying and refusing to leave Eisgruber’s office. The group wrote that civil disobedience can be necessary at times, but not “when channels of advocacy, through fair procedures of decision-making, are fully open, as they are at our University.”
The group said that using the methods chosen by the protesters comes “dangerously close to the line dividing demonstration from intimidation.”
The group also brings up the absurdity of erasing historical figures due to their flaws.
“It is not for his contemptible racism, but for his contributions as president of both Princeton and the United States that we honor Wilson,” the group wrote. “Moreover, if we cease honoring flawed individuals, there will be no names adorning our buildings, no statues decorating our courtyards, and no biographies capable of inspiring future generations.”
The group also requests more diversity within the faculty, but not based on skin color. The group wants more faculty “representing a wider range of viewpoints,” even controversial ones.
The Princeton Coalition notes that “requiring cultural competency training” reeks of the “re-education programs” typically found in the former Communist bloc.
Finally, the group knocks the concept of “safe spaces,” writing that no member of the community could ever be truly safe from having their views challenged, nor should they.
“While students with a shared interest in studying certain cultures are certainly welcome to live together, we reject university-sponsored separatism in housing,” the group wrote. “We are all members of the Princeton community. We denounce the notion that our basic interactions with each other should be defined by demographic traits.”
The group also wrote that they would no longer “remain silent out of fear of being slandered” and would “not stop fighting for what we believe in.”
The Princeton group is the latest to push back against the tyranny of “safe spaces” on college campuses. At Claremont McKenna College, the editorial board of the student newspaper penned an op-ed dissenting from the behavior of the protestors. Ian Paris, from the University of Missouri, wrote his own op-ed for the College Fix, saying that he had heard from other students who were too afraid to speak out against the protests.
Despite the growing dissent among students, college presidents and administrators continue to give in to the demands of the loudest group. It’s going to take a lot more voices to bring sanity back to higher education.
