At approximately 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, members of the University community raced to Robertson Hall 016. The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) was to assemble for a last minute special session ahead of the next day’s Lawnparties.
The meeting, set to begin 15 minutes later, was the culmination of three hours of efforts from members of the USG Senate who sought to discuss the McCosh Courtyard “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in relation to the festivities of the next day, along with the message USG would communicate to their constituency.
Over the last four days, a small cohort of USG Senate members were working to develop a petition on the arrest of two graduate students on Thursday morning, but faced rejection from their fellow representatives.
“We echo the calls of our fellow students on the Daily Princetonian Editorial Board and our colleagues on the Columbia College Student Council, who highlight the disproportionate response of barring from campus and arrest to [those] erecting a tent, and the University’s break with its tradition and that within higher education more broadly of allowing broad latitude for uncomfortable discourse and disruptive protest,” the petition reads.
At Columbia, it took just roughly 24 hours following the New York Police Department’s sweep of campus for the student government to release an open letter condemning the arrest of students.
By 10 p.m. on Saturday, approximately 15 members of the community made it just in time for the meeting and filed into the bowl. Yet, just five minutes after the meeting commenced, they were sent out of the room as the USG Senate voted to move into an executive session in an 18–4–1 vote, closing their door on the public. Votes rejecting a move to the Executive Session included supporters of the petition like Isabella Shutt ’24 and Quentin Colón Roosevelt ’27, both of whom have spent time in the sit-in.
“I think everyone acknowledges USG is a very big entity that has that connection with the administrators,” Arman Nemati ’27, the alumni affairs co-chair — a non-voting USG position — told the ‘Prince.’ “There is a responsibility that USG has, to at the very least, be transparent.”
Rabbi Eitan Webb, the co-director of Princeton Chabad, was also present to support some students who had called him to attend.
“I have a policy that whenever a student asks me to come to anything at all on this campus, and my schedule allows it, I show up. Two students called me, said, ‘Rabbi, this is happening, can you come,’” he said.
On the decision to move into the closed door format, Webb said, “It’s fine. I mean, the USG has their rules and their policies. I expect them to operate with honor and dignity. I don’t see why they would not.”
With day four of the sit-in beginning, USG had yet to officially gather to discuss the demonstration. The ‘Prince’ spoke to non-voting attendees and USG Senate members, some of whom expressed frustration at the lack of action, and others who chalked the night’s events up to the execution of procedure.
“If the president receives a petition with five signatures, calling for a special meeting, outlining time, location and agenda for that meeting, then the president calls the meeting. I received one petition today … and I called the meeting,” USG President Avi Attar ’25 explained to the ‘Prince.’
Calls to boycott miss their target
The petition circulated by some members of USG calls on the University to lift the suspensions of Hassan Sayed GS and Achinthya Sivalingam GS, the two arrested graduate students, and to prevent further arrest and discipline for students involved in the encampment.
“Our role requires that we speak up for our constituents when their well-being and growth as students and people are threatened. The arrest of graduate students, who serve as our teachers and peers, for erecting a tent was a disproportionate, unnecessary, and escalatory response to an expressive act,” it reads.
On Saturday afternoon, an organizer with Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) sent a message to residential college listservs calling for the cancellation of Lawnparties, including an email template directed to be sent towards 16 students on the USG Social Committee, none of whom have voting power. Flyers calling for a Lawnparties boycott were also circulated, including at locations such as Firestone Library tables.
“It is vile to continue the facade of normalcy while our university continues to invest in the apartheid state of Israel financially and academically,” the email template reads. “There is no neutrality. Silence is complicity.”
One of the people on the list had received approximately 20 emails within two hours of PIAD’s listserv message. According to Roosevelt, the aim of the email template was misguided.
“We ended up deciding that the action we need to take right now is to protect those members [of the Social Committee],” Roosevelt said. “Most of them are [first-years], they just like Lil Tecca, that’s their only real input into this entire process … they can’t cancel Lawnparties. It’s not within their power.”
“If you have a concern about Lawnparties, direct it to us, the voting members of USG,” he added.
As to whether or not the USG Senate has the power to shut down Lawnparties, Attar left the answer up in the air.
“We work in collaboration with many different internal and external partners to make Lawnparties happen,” Attar noted. “As the official representative body of undergraduate students, our voice matters.”
As news spread of the effort to boycott Lawnparties, there was at least some pushback. In one post on the University message board Fizz, an anonymous user wrote, “if your goal was to make neutral people opposed to your mission, you achieved it, because im going to be livid if lawnparties get cancelled.”
The post has since been removed.
“I think canceling Lawnparties would’ve been unproductive to the goals of this encampment,” Roosevelt added. “I think that it might have caused tensions that have already built between protesters and other students to erupt.”
Meeting timing and accessibility
Outside the meeting, Maximillian Meyer ’27 told the ‘Prince’ that he thought the decision to close the door was intentionally made to be inaccessible to prevent dissenting voices from expressing opinions.
“I think that they’re engaging in the typical parliamentary delay processes,” he said. “And I think that the fact that they need to move to a closed door meeting is reflective of the intentionally rushed nature of this call to vote by those who seek to undermine University opinion and undermine the ability of those opposed to their resolution to show up and to make their voices heard.”
Earlier this week, Meyer made national headlines after speaking to outlets like Fox News and CBS New York.
Attar said that he called the meeting at the time requested on the petition, as required by the USG constitution. Despite a Zoom link being sent to members of the Senate prior to the meeting, Attar and USG Vice President Srista Tripathi ’25 clarified that members would have to attend in person, in an email thread with Senate members obtained by the ‘Prince.’ After Roosevelt raised the issue during the meeting, Attar replied, “Yeah, I totally get that. Thanks for letting me know.” No Zoom option was made available by the time the meeting was called to order.
In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Roosevelt also expressed that he wished Attar had called a special meeting earlier, as permitted by the USG constitution.
“Yeah, it’s my understanding that the president or vice president can call a special meeting,” Attar told the ‘Prince.’
The statements to come
When USG reconvenes later today with Lawnparties in the rearview mirror and no longer a topic of deliberation, focus will likely shift to whether to issue a statement on the sit-in at the meeting.
“I think USG really needs to speak up here,” Roosevelt said, referencing the statement circulated by Shutt asking the University to reinstate the two grad students arrested on Thursday morning. He also said that “not a lot of people [in the Senate] signed on.”
U-Councilor Daniel Shaw ’25 sent a petition of his own to residential college listservs on Friday night, generally calling on the University “to uphold our right to freedom of speech and protest.” As of 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, 131 students had signed the letter.
After the meeting closed and Senate members flocked out of Robertson 016, Class of 2026 Senator Samuel Kligman ’26 noted in a statement to spectators gathered outside that a communication would be sent out in advance of Lawnparties giving context to the student body about moving the wristband station for Lawnparties from the McCosh tent — next to the sit-in — to the backyard of Campus Club.
“We moved because of student safety. Our main interest is student safety,” Kligman said.
In a separate interview, Roosevelt clarified that the student safety in question referred to “the safety of sober students compared to drunk students who might be getting their wristbands.”
Attar told the ‘Prince’ that an upcoming message from USG to the student body would represent the view of “USG students responsible for Lawnparties, but should not constitute an official position of the Senate.” When asked whether this message would reflect the views of the Social Committee, Attar responded, “It will come through the USG email.”
Attar did not elaborate on the point on student safety, though he noted student safety was a priority. “You can expect communication in advance of the event with time for students to read it,” he said.
The USG is currently set to meet today at 5 p.m. — just two hours after the Lawnparties headline act goes up.
Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor and the investigations editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Stockton, Calif. and often covers campus activism and University accountability.
Christopher Bao is an assistant News editor and the accessibility director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.
Sejal Goud is a head Features editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Correction: A previous version of the piece incorrectly said that Uma Fox ’26 signed the petition on the arrest of the two graduate students. The ‘Prince’ regrets this error.
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