On February 10th, The Daily Princetonian published its second ever annual Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion Report. The report follows the Prince’s first ever Diversity Report published last year.
Less than 5 percent of the Prince staff reported itself as conservative, similar to less than 3 percent in 2022. According to The Daily Princetonian’s Frosh Survey, conservatives account for 11.4 percent of Princeton’s student body compared to the 36 percent of Americans who identify as conservative. Despite having no stated political association, over 83 percent of the Prince’s staff identifies as left-of-center.
(Graph courtesy of the Daily Princetonian’s DEIB Report)
The DEIB report also detailed the home states of its writers, with no staff members from rural states like Utah, Missouri, Minnesota, and 16 other primarily rural states.
The Prince claims that in response to the results of last year’s survey, it implemented policies that would increase representation from diverse perspectives. The report explains that the paper led initiatives like special issues on queerness, Blackness, and scientific research “with the hope of bringing coverage of these historically underrepresented communities to the forefront.”
The Prince also created “identity-specific affinity spaces for marginalized staffers and laid the groundwork for increasing community engagement with various leaders on campus.” While the Prince has undertaken many initiatives to increase racial and socioeconomic diversity, it made no mention of increasing political diversity in its goals.
When asked to comment on the DEIB data, Editor-in-Chief Rohit Narayanan explained to the Tory that the paper sees “diversity of all kinds — including ideological diversity — as an important aspect of our institutional values.”
Narayanan further expressed: “We have pursued and are pursuing a variety of strategies to better reflect the diversity of all members of the Princeton community, including ideological diversity.” As of the writing of this piece, The Prince has not announced any specific initiatives aimed at promoting ideological diversity.
(Featured image courtesy of Khürt Williams)
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