Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
“I don’t get why people complain about Princeton being ‘too liberal’ when the school has always been willing to accommodate or even embrace conservatism…Conservative students need to get their heads out of their [expletive].”
This is just one recent example of anti-conservative material from the tens of thousands of anonymous posts on Tiger Confessions#, a private Facebook group for Princeton students. Group members post anonymous confessions that members can then interact with publicly.
Tiger Confessions# was first created in June 2020 and has over 3,000 members as of April 23, 2021. The group was created after a previous Tiger Confessions group was shut down in 2019.
“Over the past year, I have become anxious about the possible negative impacts of the group, such as the radicalization of political views, the alienation of students with dissenting opinions, or the enablement of stalking or harassment,” explained Ty Ger, the previous group’s administrator, in their explanation of why the site was terminated.
Following an initial post that criticized the political climate on campus, several posts and comments published to Tiger Confessions# on April 22, 2021, targeted conservative students. “You all can just reveal your true colors and admit that you want to eradicate conservative students,” the initial post read.
“Yes!…ur saying [eradicating conservative students] as if it is a bad thing,” commented one student.
“Maybe if we eradicated conservative students we wouldn’t have had this stupid series of takes where conservatives want to act like people disagreeing with their opinions is oppression,” another student commented. This comment received at least eleven likes before it was deleted.
A different student posted a photo showing a bullseye on an individual’s forehead in response. This image was cropped from a Twitter exchange between English conservative Katie Hopkins and a Twitter user. Hopkins posted the photo of the bullseye along with the caption, “this is how it feels to be a white conservative woman.”
“Princeton takes all accusations of harassment seriously, and no student should ever feel unsafe on our campus, said Deputy University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss in an emailed comment to the Tory. “We have received a student complaint and are looking into it.”
“We have also alerted the proper administrators in the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students so they can provide direct support to any students who have been impacted,” Hotchkiss continued.
Tiger Confessions: A Space for Princeton Students to Vent
Posts on Tiger Confessions# are typically lighthearted, ranging from jokes to internship advice.
However, one does not need to search hard to find hateful content directed towards conservatives. Posts published from early 2021 include celebrations of Prince Philip’s death, demonizations of former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and targeted attacks on individual conservative Princeton students.
Several posts from Summer 2020 targeted the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) following the publication of their letter called “In Defense of Academic Freedom: Princeton Open Campus Coalition’s Letter to President Eisgruber.” One student even arranged the photos of the POCC letter’s signatories into a grid on a different Princeton Facebook group to single these students out.
An October Tory News piece by Cassy James ’23 and Ally Noone ’23 called Tiger Confessions# “toxic.” “While the number of political posts and nature of discussions have varied over the course of several page administrators, the sheer divisiveness of the content and conversations has urged the current administrator to offer a high bar for the quality of political posts,” James and Noone noted.
Unlike other private Facebook groups, Tiger Confessions# has a set of rules that prohibit “low-effort political content…[and] personal attacks” in addition to several other types of content, including “advertisements, self-promotion, marketing, [and] roommate requests.”
Many posts also appear with trigger warnings such as “NSFW, abuse, or disordered eating.” These labels refer to adult content, sexual or physical abuse, and eating disorders, respectively.
An Already-Fractured Student Body
The 2020-2021 academic year has taken a toll on Princeton’s students. Many students have criticized the University’s COVID-19 policies.
Despite efforts from Princeton faculty and professors, students’ mental health has greatly suffered during this period. The University’s decision to shorten Spring Break to just a few days has been pointed to as an additional cause of stress for students.
Meanwhile, the political scene on campus has also become increasingly polarized, with Whig-Clio recently voting to revoke the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service (JMA) from Senator Ted Cruz ’92 (R-Texas). Whig-Clio later reversed course and did not revoke the award.
Rebekah Adams ‘21 believes that the transition to online classes and activities has spread “gross misconceptions” that students hold about one another. “I fear the [political] climate may be getting worse,” she admitted.
However, Adams firmly believes that the offending posters should not face action from the University. “I don’t think they should be made an example,” she explained. “Times are already insane.”
However, Adams does want them “to learn and soften up to the fact that there are different students with different ideas.”
“We can always criticize each other for our views,” she pointed out. “But spreading misconceptions without actually talking to [other] students themselves or even agreeing to the notion of ‘eradicating conservative students’ [goes far beyond] ‘criticizing’ them,” she added.
“To be honest, I wish I got along with more of [the people who posted the comments], but it’s getting harder to see humanity in others when they can’t do the same for you,” Adams concluded.
Conservative Students at Princeton
By any metric, conservative students at Princeton are lucky. Those right-of-center have access to some of the brightest conservative minds in the world including Professor Robert George and Professor Keith Whittington.
There is also a healthy number of conservative groups on campus, including College Republicans, College Libertarians, Princeton Pro-Life, Whig-Clio’s Cliosophic Party, the POCC, and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
However, the student body’s political views have an overwhelmingly left-wing slant. A poll conducted by The Daily Princetonian in advance of the November 2020 presidential election found that 86% of respondents were planning to vote for Joe Biden.
Cliosophic Party chair Matthew Wilson ‘24 believes that most left-leaning Princeton students do not endorse the threatening posts on Tiger Confessions.
“Those calling for an ‘eradication’ of conservative students obviously represent a small minority of left-leaning students at Princeton, and I’m hopeful that the majority of my liberal peers engage in political discourse in good-faith,” Wilson asserted.
“However, this phenomenon of certain left-wing students openly attacking and threatening their right-of-center peers instead of respectfully challenging their viewpoints should disturb all Princeton students, faculty, and alumni,” Wilson noted.
Adams is a staff writer for the Tory and Wilson is an editor.
This article has been updated to reflect that the image of the bullseye was cropped from a Twitter dialogue.
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