Letters to the editor

Tilghman should not use presidency as a forum to advocate social policy

Dear Shirley: STOP!

President Tilghman is at it again. Recently, she signed her name — and with it, every one of ours — to an amicus brief in the University of Michigan admissions policy Supreme Court case. Never mind that most people on this campus probably agree that race is a legitimate consideration in admissions, and most would probably agree that the weight given by Michigan to certain of its minority applicant is — to put it mildly — excessive. President Tilghman is certainly free to think whatever she wants. What bothers us is that she seems to have confused her presidency with a soapbox and a megaphone for waging her own personal crusades.

This is not the first time that President Tilghman has made a stand in the name of Princeton. She has supported the much maligned seven week athletic moratorium, applauded by "friends of athletes" and loathed by the athletes themselves. She has quietly shown a willingness to join in a plan to move the Ivy League from Division I to Division III athletics. And, of course, President Tilghman has advocated an admissions policy that searches for diversity by admitting more activist students with "green hair."

It is fine that President Tilghman favors policies that we oppose, and we are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she feels she has good reasons for doing so. However, President Tilghman must realize that, as much as she might want to see more activists at Princeton, it is not her job to be one. Does she really think she is endearing herself to wealthy alums — many of whom were athletes and non-activists who do not have green hair — with her policy choices? She certainly has not won us over. Instead, we have seen her try her best to dismantle what we like most about Princeton. We chose to come to Princeton because of its size, its high percentage of well-rounded people, its focus on more practical learning instead of "abstract intellectualism" and the absence of green haired radicals. Now, it seems that President Tilghman wants to turn us into Brown's Central Jersey campus. No thanks. This school has been recognized as the best in the country for many reasons, including the amazing student body that Dean Hargadon assembles year in and year out, and it needs no reinventing by a president hellbent on making her stamp in Princeton's annals. Just keep us at the top, Shirley.

President Tilghman must realize that her role as President is not to advocate social policy here or elsewhere. Whether or not we agree with her stand on the University of Michigan case or anything else, we should all agree that it is not her place to weigh in on them on behalf of Princetonians past and present. When she speaks, she speaks as our leader, and she should be sensitive to that fact instead of using the prestige of this institution to give weight to her personal views. Josh Humphries '03, John Kabealo '03, John Tanski '03