More than 40 Princeton students laid on the ground in front of Firestone Library on a cold afternoon in February, during a die-in to protest Israel’s planned military offense in Rafah. Originally, the protest was supposed to happen the day before, on Feb. 13. However, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the student organization behind the protest — and one that has been at the forefront of recent pro-Palestinian action on campus — rescheduled the demonstration, deterred by forecasts of snow.
On Feb. 12, a similar die-in occurred in front of Harvard’s Widener steps. Its attendees numbered nearly 200.
“At Harvard, the numbers of students who were participating in the die-in was much higher, even though the framing of the event was basically the same,” Emanuelle Sippy ’25, the president of the Alliance for Jewish Progressives (AJP), told The Daily Princetonian in an interview last week.
The lack of what Sippy called a “critical mass” of protestors isn’t unique to the cause, nor is it new for Princeton’s campus. For example, a Feb. 2023 demonstration planned by Divest Princeton — a coalition of climate activists calling on the University to disassociate from fossil fuels — only attracted a dozen students, including the organizers. Such lackluster turnouts at demonstrations are the norm, not the exception at the University, contributing to Princeton’s notoriety as a deeply apathetic campus — one where the vast majority of students are seemingly uninvolved in and unaware of campus politics while a select few activists take the spotlight.
David Brooks documented this apathy in his profile “The Organization Kid,” written after a visit to Princeton at the turn of the millennium: “There are a lot of things these future leaders no longer have time for. I was on campus at the height of the election season, and I saw not even one Bush or Gore poster,” he wrote at the time. “I asked around about this and was told that most students have no time to read newspapers, follow national politics, or get involved in crusades.”
In the past decade, various movements have defied this reputation — including Divest Princeton’s long-term campaign urging the University to divest from fossil fuel companies, the 2015 Nassau Hall sit-in planned by the Black Justice League (BJL), and, now, activism around the conflict in Gaza and the launch of the Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD).
In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ history professor Joshua B. Guild identified the BJL’s 2015 sit-in as “the most active and engaged” he’s seen students, at least, he noted, “up until the present moment.”
The ongoing demonstration for Palestine continues at a scale unprecedented in Princeton’s recent history, uprooting a deep-seated indifference that many have come to think of as ingrained in the institution’s very identity. The questions remain: Why now and why this cause?
Princeton: The ‘Southern,’ burned-out pre-professionals
“I’ve certainly heard a lot of students complain of generalized apathy on campus,” history professor Max Weiss told the ‘Prince,’ although he notes that “students really do care about sensitive and important political issues.”
There’s a strong consensus among students that Princeton’s campus is apathetic, but asking the question of why retrieves a variety of answers.
According to Guild, “there’s a certain kind of preprofessional culture here” that keeps students focused on their post-graduation trajectories.
“Often, students who come to Princeton have very particular ideas of what they want to do after, whether that’s law school, Wall Street, consulting — a number of different professions that not only require good academic grades, but I think discourage that kind of political activism,” he said.
Sippy agreed that Princeton students are often focused on “the next thing.” Hannah Reynolds Martinez ’22, a member of Divest Princeton, said that “if they weren’t directly impacted by the issues that were kind of at play, a lot of folks were more focused on getting a prestigious internship or joining a club.”
Last year’s senior survey conducted by the ‘Prince’ indicated that 9.5 percent of students intended to go into consulting and 9.3 percent into finance, as opposed to 7.1 percent of graduates who planned to work in the nonprofit or public service industry.
While activists at any school experience burnout from long-term commitment to their causes, and student groups experience fluctuating periods of activity, Princeton’s independent work expectations for juniors and seniors accelerates participant turnover.
“The students that tend to be drawn to Princeton may not be the most ‘activist’ students, in part because of the narrative that we have,” Sippy said.
She referenced Princeton’s reputation as a “Southern Ivy” — a term that refers to both Princeton’s historic ties to the South and the slow-moving nature of its transition to an integrated, co-educational University in the 20th century.
The University did not begin to admit Black students in earnest until the 1940s with the introduction of WWII Navy Program. However, black students did not number in the double digits until the mid-1960s. And while the University became co-educational in 1969, nearly 15 years before Columbia University, Princeton’s eating clubs only became fully co-ed after a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court.
In comparison to other campuses where he has worked and studied, Guild also noted a “deep culture of consensus at Princeton” and a “reluctance to disagree,” both in classrooms and the public forum.
“We value civility. And to a certain degree, I think that’s important,” he told the ‘Prince’ last week. “But I think it can also have a distorting effect in that I think it limits the degree to which people want to outwardly express themselves politically.”
In her email preempting the sit-in, Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun referenced demonstrations at other schools that have “hindered the ability of the institutions to fulfill their educational missions.”
“Against that backdrop, I write to ask for your help in ensuring that we can continue to balance our robust commitment to free expression with our obligation to provide a welcoming and safe environment for all students and for other members of our community,” the email wrote.
And unlike the majority of Ivy League schools, Princeton’s home base is in a suburban region removed from major cities, and “there’s no obvious place to congregate,” Weiss said. Walkouts occur outside of Nassau Hall, the North and South lawns at Frist Campus Center, Firestone Plaza, or occasionally, in Palmer Square, but these zones do not attract the same foot traffic as Harvard Yard or UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.
“The students are certainly hurried and busy and stressed, but the pace of campus life is actually quite subdued, calm, almost sleepy,” Weiss said.
“They said it was not possible here”
Since Oct. 7, University students on all sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict have led protests and counter-protests, and Princeton is no exception. At first, the reaction centered around vigils, even as rallies popped up at other institutions. Then, as the Israeli counteroffensive mounted, moods shifted. On Oct. 25, hundreds of Princetonians joined other nationwide campuses during a walkout in solidarity with Palestine.
In the fall, Pro-Palestinian organizers with PIAD officially called for divestment from Israel, and reiterated their demands after University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 dismissed the petition at a February CPUC meeting.
“There’s been a lot of divestment precedents here that we are inspiring ourselves from and learning from,” Sophie Bandarkar GS told the ‘Prince’ at the sit-in on Friday.
On Thursday, Larry Hamm ’78 spoke to the crowd about his time pressuring the University to divest from apartheid in South Africa during a series of protests in 1978. And in 2022, following continued action by Divest Princeton, the University announced a divestment from all publicly traded fossil fuel companies.
While the frequency and intensity of Pro-Palestine protests throughout the fall marked an increase in engagement from what is typical at Princeton, all remained mostly uneventful, with limited engagement from national media. However, now campus activism has become more intense.
Following the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampments’ at Columbia University that featured over one hundred arrests, Princeton activists, like those at schools around the country, made the decision to follow suit, marking an escalation from their previous protests.
When planning of this leaked activists were not deterred, even as Calhoun to sent an email to the undergraduate body indicating that any encampment participants may face disciplinary action such as arrest, suspension, or expulsion.
“We’re in an age of social networking and social media, and so I think students have become very savvy around how to publicize their thoughts and publicize their actions and put pressure on institutions to act in particular ways,” Guild noted.
The sit-in drew hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members to McCosh Courtyard throughout the day. Crowds swelled to upwards of 250 people during its first day.
Princeton’s sit-in is an unprecedented moment of mobilization on campus, sparked by the national movement sweeping across other college campuses and supported by social media and faculty involvement.
“[What] we have built so far — I feel optimistic about it right now,” Bandarkar said. “I don’t think everyone on campus at any point is going to join us, but I think more and more. I feel confident that more people will at least be aware.”
“This feels like a 1968 moment,” Weiss told the ‘Prince’ before word of a planned sit-in began to circulate. “This feels like a level of student mobilization and organizing, and a veritable national student movement that has not been seen since the 60s.”
Protestors have leveraged their awareness of how the demonstration defies Princeton’s generally apathetic context to motivate participants. “They said it was not possible here, and it is possible,” Aditi Rao GS told protesters in a speech on Thursday.
While, Princeton may be defying it’s own expectations with the sit-in, the campus culture has yet to change. McCosh Courtyard is out of the sightline of the surrounding public roads and covered from the view of central campus by a large white tent. As students walk through to head to their classes, the library, or dorm rooms, they sometimes pause, look on, and listen — but, more often than not, they do not.
“In some ways, the narrative that Princeton is only inactive — it’s part of what we’re trying to counter,” Bandarkar said.
Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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