The chaotic anti-Israel protests of last year have faded, but quieter, more insidious biases have remained entrenched on Princeton’s campus. One need look no further than the experience of an Israel club I’m involved with, B’Artzeinu, where university policies have enabled departments and professors to discriminate against pro-Israel students and organizations.
This past July, in my capacity as Co-President of the Zionist club, I contacted dozens of academic units to request co-sponsorship for an event. We planned to host Phelim McAleer’s lauded play, October 7: In Their Own Words, to bring awareness about the October 7th attacks to campus. We had specifically hoped that this verbatim play, based on first-hand accounts and notably absent of editorializing or politics, would help build bridges across campus.
We did as any diligent Princeton club would do: we reached out to any department, minor, program, or center on campus with intellectual overlap to see whether they would be willing to co-sponsor. While they can include a financial contribution, co-sponsorships are typically symbolic, demonstrating the event is endorsed by respected academic programs. What’s more, co-sponsorships typically include significant event advertisement, which helps raise attendance and our club’s reputation across campus.
The event received co-sponsorships from seven academic units on Princeton’s campus: the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, the Department of Music, the Program in Judaic Studies, the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, the University Center for Human Values, the Program in Translation and Communication, and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Many more academic units declined to co-sponsor our event, with most explaining that their program’s policy precludes them from partnering with student groups, irrespective of the event’s contents.
Yet the unwillingness of the Comparative Literature and History Departments to co-sponsor our event was noteworthy, as they had co-sponsored events from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) the previous semester. I followed up with both department’s representatives, Thomas Hare and Michael Laffan respectively, to understand each department’s unwillingness to sponsor our event.
“Is there a criteria that the Comparative Literature Department uses to assess whether to co-sponsor a student organization’s events,” I asked Dr. Hare. He replied that the “events we (co-)sponsor are primarily related intellectually to the discipline of Comparative literature.” When I demonstrated that the October 7th play did bear intellectual overlap, and that it was similar in kind to a recent SJP event titled “Palestine Poetry Night” which received department co-sponsorship, he shifted the goalposts, and intellectual overlap was no longer the determining factor in sponsorship decisions. I asked if “the Comparative Literature Department [would] co-sponsor an event from a Zionist club under other circumstances?” My question was not met with an answer, only that this specific event did not “serve[] the interests of the department.”
Less than a month later, the Comparative Literature Department co-sponsored SJP’s “Student Advocacy Panel: Palestine Advocacy at Princeton.” One needs more than a comp lit degree from Princeton to understand how a panel of students discussing their experiences and opinions on anti-Israel activism is relevant to academia, let alone the discipline of comparative literature.
The History Department was similarly discriminatory. “Our [committee’s] consensus was that it was not historical or yet historicist in terms of our discipline,” explained Professor Michael Laffan to me in an email. Yet when I challenged him on why our event was not considered historical, as the Department had no trouble sponsoring SJP’s event on “The [present] Gaza Genocide,” he did not respond. Nor did he respond to any of my three follow-up emails. Apparently, when involving Jews on campus, the History Department felt entitled to their own history. What could be more historical than a play which exclusively uses first-hand eyewitness accounts to detail a horrific act of terror? How can a first-rate History Department knowingly insulate its students from primary sources it finds inconvenient?
It should come as no surprise that professors who repeatedly declare their commitment to an academic and cultural boycott of the Jewish State fulfill that commitment when given the opportunity. Indeed, the two professors with whom I corresponded—Thomas Hare and Michael Laffan—had professionally tethered themselves to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement as early as 2014, with Dr. Laffan co-launching the movement’s Princeton division, and Dr. Hare acting as a signatory. Their zeal for the anti-Israel cause has only grown in the decade since.
When I met with two representatives from the Provost’s office about the discrimination I faced, they immediately dismissed my case, claiming that our group did not face ‘adverse impact’ as a result of the departments’ unwillingness to work with our club and thus had no standing. The University sought a technical loophole to ignore antisemitism and found it. The decision was not subject to appeal.
This academic malaise is hardly shocking coming from a University which erased its own history, removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from the school of international affairs in 2020. In October, a committee chaired by History Professor Beth Lew recommended relocating a famed statue of John Witherspoon, a Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Consistent for a professor who has made clear her wish to place anti-racism at the “core of our university values.”
Princeton claims to champion diversity and inclusion, but its actions expose a deeper hypocrisy. By allowing academic departments to act politically rather than in the pursuit of truth, the University undermines academic freedom and protects a sham of intellectual rigor. In cloaking discrimination with bureaucratic doublespeak, it sends a clear message: some voices are welcome, and others, inconveniently, are not.
Image credit: Roxana Crusemire, Unsplash
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