2008 Woodie Awards
Howard, you are right; however, I do not think that their editorial is a good one. They rightly reject the College Republicans’ SBOR, but they suggest that if it were amended, it would be fine and they would editorialize in favor of it:
A more clearly-articulated SBOR that is free of redundant sections would give students the opportunity to clarify what we see as essential to a fair learning environment that is free from unnecessary politicization. But the current bill proposed by the College Republicans is not this ideal bill.
This is still the wrong position to take. The editorial board’s position here is like the liberal hawk position on Iraq: a good idea, but badly executed. Similarly, the ed board says SBOR is a good idea, but the College Republicans’ version is badly executed. This is precisely akin to the “incompetence dodge” used by liberal hawks vis-a-vis the Iraq war. Just like the liberal hawks say the war was a good idea but badly executed, the newspaper’s editorial board says the SBOR is a good idea, but badly executed. But the liberal hawks were wrong, and the Princetonian editorial board is wrong as well: the SBOR is a bad idea, period. They write that “we support the general values outlined by the SBOR because we strongly believe that students should actively affirm their desire for a fair and open classroom.” In this they misunderstand what the general values outlined by SBOR actually are. Like far too many Princeton students, they think “academic freedom” means “academic freedom” when the College Republicans say it. This is naive: “academic freedom” is a Lakoffian frame employed by the CR’s disguise a partisan agenda. I would not even support a revised SBOR on principle, because students simply have no right to dictate to faculty how they should teach their classes. If you are being harrassed, that’s illegal, and you should take it up with the authorities. Even if we were to concede that English professors have no business talking about the Iraq war in class, the principle of SBOR is still wrong, because students have no business telling a professor how they should run their classes or what they should say.
Over at the Tory’s new blog, they’re asking:
Do we have any (preliminary) preferences for the ‘08 Republican candidate? McCain, Frist, Tancredo, Rice, Giuliani, Sen. George Allen (R-VA), Sen. Brownback (R-KS), Mitt Romney, Chuck Hagel? Personally, I’d like someone with a Reaganesque determination to limit the growth of the Federal Government…a determination our current President does not have.
It’s important to highlight the use of “we” here- the conflation of the interests of the Tory and the Republican Party. In Juergen’s phrasing, there’s really no difference between them. Also, is it not true that almost all of the Tory’s leadership are members of Princeton’s College Republicans as well? One then should ask, why should I read the Tory when I can just read Ken Mehlman’s better written, more concise, and more professional press releases? Either way, we’re just getting the views of a bunch of Republicans, so why read the inferior articulation offered by the Tory? The point is that the Tory makes no genuinely new, creative, or interesting contribution to the political discussion. I can get the exact same opinions and views- only more informed and more elegantly articulated- from Mehlman’s website. Of course, you can’t ask a similar question of this magazine because the PPN makes absolutely no pretenses to be a mouthpiece of the Democratic (or any other) political party. Maybe the Tory should be saving some trees; oh wait . . . I guess the idea of ‘editorial independence’ is as much of a foreign concept among young conservative “journalists” as integrity itself.
I have an op-ed in today’s Daily Princetonian explaining why the proposed “students bill of rights,” pushed by College Republicans and (sadly) supported by some mis-guided and mis-informed progressives, is a very bad idea. Do check it out. I hope Princeton students do not buy into the propaganda being put out by the College Republicans on this one, exemplified by this op-ed by Wyatt Yankus. He misleads his readers when he writes that “. . . correcting the problems that do exist does not require the same drastic measures that have been used by Students for Academic Freedom in other cases, and our SBOR reflects this difference.” First, the only ‘problem’ here is the College Republicans’ attempt to quelch the free exchange of ideas at Princeton University. Second, this is simply not what their bill says. You wouldn’t know that, however, because the College Republicans’ bill is not publicly available. I have obtained a copy, and it is indistinguishable from Horowitz’s. Below the fold, I have reprinted a press release that Free Exchange at Princeton sent out last Friday highlighting the similarities. (Let me make clear that Free Exchange at Princeton is in no way affiliated with the Princeton Progressive Nation).
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For the summer, I know Princeton students end up all over the place. There are those who choose to spend the months of June, July, and August participating in REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates), taking even more courses, living in and travelling to distant places, and taking on a job, possibly at a local store or by participating in an internship. Then there are those who choose to suck in the sunny days with no work on the horizon. The list goes on.
The Harvard Crimson has an article from several years back about summers that still seems relevant today, and as relevant to Princeton as it is to Harvard now.
My thoughts on Max Blumenthal’s fantastic cover story from the latest issue of The Nation are here.
Aaron Burr Hall at Princeton is incongruous on several counts. Students call it the “assassin building,” but the four-square brick structure on Nassau Street actually commemorates the senior Burr . . .
To my knowledge, nobody at Princeton calls Burr Hall the “assasin building.” I had a class freshman year in the old Burr Hall, before it was internally refurbished. If you’re looking for me, I’m here.
I see that Howard beat me to the punch on addressing some of the absurd(ly comical) statements from the Alito confirmation hearings. But just for the heck of it, here are a few more (I think) genuinely funny comments that pertain to this institution:
Day 3
SEN. GRAHAM: Now, your days at Princeton. The more I know about Princeton, it’s an interesting place. (LAUGHTER) What is an eating society?
ALITO: The eating clubs are privately owned facilities that upper classmen join for the purpose of taking their meals. The first two years, when I was there — the situation is now a bit more diversified as far as eating is concerned — but when I was there, and traditionally the freshmen and sophomores ate in university dining halls. And then, as juniors and seniors, they had to find other places to eat, and these were private facilities.
GRAHAM: What is a selective eating society?
ALITO: It’s one where you apply to be a member, like a fraternity, and you go through a process that is somewhat similar to that, and they select you if they like you.
GRAHAM: Were you a member of a selective eating society?
ALITO: No, I was not.
GRAHAM: Did people not like you or you just didn’t apply? (LAUGHTER)ALITO: I didn’t apply.
GRAHAM: Well, let me tell you who did apply. Donald Rumsfeld was a member of a selective eating society at Princeton. And that’s an interesting comment, I thought. Woodrow Wilson. Jim Leach, good friend of mine over in the House.
Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, was a member of a nonselective eating society. Senator Claiborne Pell was a member of nonselective eating societies.
And other Princeton alumni who are members of Congress could not verify their participation or lack thereof in eating clubs, including Senator Sarbanes, Bond, Frist and Representative Marshall.
GRAHAM: And I promise you I’ll get to the bottom of that before this is all done. (LAUGHTER)
~
Another comment from Senator Biden’s lecture at the Woodrow Wilson School in February of 2004.
“Is the “Memorial Library” the name of your library? (interjection: “Firestone”) Oh, the Firestone Library… that magnificent building, those steps, like walking up to the Capitol. And we started up the steps, we opened up the door, and literally, every cube was filled in the library; I mean it, literally, top to bottom.”
Steps leading up to Firestone? What part of the library looks like the Capitol? Did he really visit Princeton 
…?
An interesting article in today’s NY Times about Princeton’s reaction to how the university has been portrayed during the confirmation hearings:
The Alma Mater: At Princeton, the Hearings Cause Unease
in the Prince’s wrap-up of news stories of the year.
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