Princeton Students Take Over President’s Office, Demand Erasure Of Woodrow Wilson

Parents Forum
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@Gator88NE : “It’s one thing to sit in class with another students, it’s a whole another thing to live with them in a residence hall.”

Forgive, but can you clarify for me what sentiment you are expressing here?

On the whole, I have to say I am disappointed at the level of persistent insult hurled at the student community who brought forth issues of concern about their perceptions of welcome and inclusion in the social life of the Princeton community. I, too, wondered if the statements calling for segregated housing were editorialized, and am grateful to OHMOMof2 for the work at clearing that up.

Affinity housing had often seemed a querulous thing to me as our family began to research colleges and universities a short while ago, and as we learned that many institutions had made an effort to provide such, we sort of accepted that that was what some students needed to make the transition from home to the wider world. Our child would not be one such student, though we did point out what was available among such options in case it appealed to him.

Black students do enter the college community across a spectrum of experience and identities, though easily enough identifiable as Black often times. Black students tend to enter the college community hopeful and bright-eyed, figuring everyone they encounter will have done the same hard work to get there, and ready to experience the same type of university life their books, films and relatives have told them is possible, and typical. It is a very egalitarian and non-sub-cultural specific imagining.

While my own child has not expressed the need for more or less of contact with any racial or cultural group, he chose a school where he feels the general student body represents his affinity group. I think most of the students at Princeton probably felt much the same: we are smart, driven, engaged, high-achieving, dynamic scholars going to a place where we will be among like-minded peers.

Any sense of disconnect or feelings of being at the periphery, or actually shut down or relegated to a place of a second-tier community member must be jarring, and we must consider the validity of students we all have understood to be among the brightest in the nation. Do the kids non-Black even recognize that this is happening? Could the question be flipped and we ask Why are all the non-Blacks sitting at dinner, and rooming together?

And do we not feel that these students’ disaffected state is something which is indeed reflective of the state of the rest of the school community? Do we know anything of what members of the other cultural and racial groups have said on this matter of the kids who are protesting feeling less than a part of the fabric of the school community, or playing no part at all in the pulse of life on campus?

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Of course, the media coverage that results from this type of crude restriction tends to portray the protesters in a negative light, presumably not what they are trying to achieve. Perhaps they need to learn from other organizations (including political and business ones) that more carefully manage/manipulate the media to maximize the chance of favorable media coverage and minimize the chance of unfavorable media coverage.

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So I was peeking at Princeton on YikYak and saw a lot of interesting comments. Included was a link to a petition at Change.org

https://www.change.org/p/protect-plurality-historical-perspective-and-academic-speech-at-princeton

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@TheGFG

Have you looked at photos of the protesters? No? Newsflash: many are white, Asian…not black.

http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/U.S./876/493/1120%20princeton.jpg

https://cbsnewyork.files.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2015/11/maryhui.jpg?w=640&h=360&crop=1

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This is all politics. It has nothing to do with black culture, white culture, yellow culture or any other color you care to name.

The motivation is to claim part of a historically white institution, not to eradicate racism.

The majority of minority students are probably scratching their heads about the wisdom of racial spaces and frankly I see nothing but risk in this approach. The strategy is just a big loser.

In reading the NJ papers, the experience explained by Philomena Kane was not racism at all. It was socially uncomfortable but not racist in the least.

She continues with no specifics at about other instances, just vague references to the school not understanding minorities.

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Sure! many feel that a diverse student body is an important educational resource that enhances the environment for learning. By segregating into separate housing, you limit interactions between the races. Being roommates is a much closer relationship/interaction than simply sharing a class.

Like any policy, race based affinity housing has it’s pluses and minuses. One minus is the reduction in interactions between the groups (IMHO).

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Yes.

I have expressed to my family over dinner that the kids learn what we transmit to them in times intimate and private, and at times when we think they are not absorbing any information at all about who we show ourselves to be. I often worry that statements like “it’s a whole another thing to live with them…” is the substance of what other adults are transmitting to their kids, the future roommates of my kids.

Thank you for responding.

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Gator is right about interaction. I had a black roommate my freshman year. It was amazing the sheer number of little things we asked each other. Seemingly stupid stuff over grooming or clothes or whatever that never would have taken place otherwise. I would support affinity housing where every room is mixed so as to force these conversations amongst folks that want to understand each other. NCSU has a program like this for foreign students and it works well.

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Hmm, that’s interesting, OHMomof2. Not all whites are racist, then, based on your links. In today’s world, and especially in the NE, I’d argue the majority of white people are not racist. Indeed, the Princeton students are only complaining about one racist: Woodrow Wilson. Similarly, at Mizzou there was apparently one person, who was not even necessarily a student there, who yelled something racist out of a car window, and one person who drew a swastika. Therefore, why do you think we should agree with the students that they need black-only spaces? Do you actually think their clearly marked place will be labeled “For Blacks and Other Non-racists”?

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If asked, how would these students feel about Margaret Sanger. She has space at The Smithsonian.

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When we took a tour of Yale, the above was the rationale for the residential college system that assigned students to dorms with the purpose of mixing students so that each college would have a diverse population representative of the larger university. By diverse, they mentioned gender, race, geographic origin, field of study, socio-economic status, etc. They specifically said that, except for certain specific situations like legacies or siblings, students were not able to choose which college they were assigned to, and they were discouraged from switching.

Most other schools do not do this. Some students may get randomized in freshman dorms, but by sophomore year or earlier they are already self-segregating into groups. This may be formal in fraternities or sororities, but happens nonetheless. The school I went to had an unofficial area that African American students went to between classes, and the various African American fraternities and sororities had their tables and picnic benches that they laid claim to.

One of the issues that the students complained about at Yale was the lack of a place they could feel “safe” or “at home”. I presume they mean an area that they did not have to interact with anyone different from them, and given Yale’s residential system, it would be more difficult for any group at Yale or similarly structured universities to self-segregate than at a typical college campus.

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I’d like to hear students of color telling their grandparents at Thanksgiving dinner that they are fighting for segregated housing and spaces, after their grandparents risked their lives in some cases for integrated housing and spaces. I am truly, deeply sympathetic to the protests regarding police violence against people of color, and regarding racism directed against current students on campus. But protests like the Wilson one just seem like an immature distraction from the true issues.

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“I’d like to hear students of color telling their grandparents at Thanksgiving dinner that they are fighting for segregated housing and spaces, after their grandparents risked their lives in some cases for integrated housing and spaces.”

I think that would be great-grandparents at this point in the game for some, but that is interesting. Of course, each generation must fight the fight before it, and even if it is the same fight, cannot use the same tools as the generation before.

Still, interesting.

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In fact, this just shows how utterly ignorant these students are about the study of history.
I am outraged by the entire thing: the students’ behavior, their ignorance, and the response of the University to cave to political correctness.

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@waitingtoexhale, the Civil Rights movement took place in the late 1950s and 1960s. The Little Rock Nine enrolled in a previously all-white high school in 1957 – so they were born around 1940, and are now about 75 years old. Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963, and MLK was assassinated in 1968. My own parents (so grandparents of my college junior) were in their 30s at that time, and are now in their 80s. So these students could very well be explaining their actions to grandparents who lived under segregation, and risked their lives to end it for future generations. Sometimes we forget how recently minorities and women were legally relegated to a lower class of citizenship. On the flip side, I am sure some of those grandparents are angry at how little some things have changed in terms of racism – but I wonder if they think fighting over names and segregated spaces is really where the younger generation’s energy should be focused.

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…for some…

I went to college with a girl whose mom turned 38 during my classmate’s junior or senior year, can’t remember which. Classmate gave birth before she graduated. Now, that doesn’t reflect my own family, where my mom’s age would be in the same range of your parents.

I would say that Blacks over the age of 40 have absolutely not forgotten “how recently minorities and women were legally relegated to a lower class of citizenship” legally.

I would find it wholly interesting to hear the feelings of the older folks regarding the energies and efforts put forth by these young people over issues so deeply felt. Somehow I can hear a parity in any admonishment that might come…a reflection on the reasons societal change absolutely had to come, and sacrifices had to be made even against the wishes and support of some of the elders of their own time, and then perhaps the multi-faceted view of an aging population for which the experience of aging and economic disparity in health and mortality outcomes varies greatly from their white counterparts. Perhaps there would be an urging to take up the reach for economic parity, attained through successful completion of higher education, before the more seemingly “symbolic” struggles of defacement and name placement.

I don’t think these young people find their efforts a reach toward solely a symbolic change, though, so that might cause a stir at the discussion table.

I would wholly like to see that town hall discussion.

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“…they are fighting for segregated housing and spaces…”

No, no, you don’t understand; it’s separate, but equal. Who could be against that?

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@Zinhead LBJ was not an animal abuser. If you are referring to his beagle, he picked the dog up the same way handlers did. He loved his dogs and had many rescues. He also had a self-sustaining ranch which operates to this day. He treated his animals quite well.

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I’m waiting for WUSTL & GWU students to demand a change of their school’s name and the removal of Washington’s face from our currency.

George Washington may have freed his slaves, but not until conveniently AFTER he died and gotten good use of them while he was alive.

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@TheGFG “In today’s world, and especially in the NE, I’d argue the majority of white people are not racist.”
Really? Having spend a third of my life in the NE, I would strongly disagree with you. Sounds like you are saying people not in the NE are racists.