On Friday, Sept. 20, University Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91 and President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 kicked off the second day of the Every Voice conference honoring LGBTQ+ alumni. Their opening remarks in Richardson Auditorium touched on recent campus discourse around free speech, mental health, and diversity.
At the event, Eisgruber emphasized the connection between diversity and excellence.
“Princeton University is stronger because of you, because you are coming back, because you are here,” he told attendees. 760 alumni returned to campus over the weekend for the conference. “When we think about all the forms of diversity at Princeton, we are better because those students and faculty and staff are here and they flourish fully.”
Rexford noted the transformations that Princeton has undergone since her time as a once-closeted student at the University. She described the novelty of experiencing the first “Gay Jeans Day” as a junior in 1989, when students wore jeans to show support for their gay, lesbian, and bisexual classmates.
“Society has changed around us, but I believe that Princeton has changed more, and for the better,” Rexford said. She noted that one in four members of the Class of 2026 identifies as LGBTQ+, receiving cheers and applause from the audience in response.
Rexford also documented several personal highlights since returning to Princeton as a faculty member in 2005, including the opening of the LGBT center — now the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) — increasing consideration of trans issues on campus, formation of support groups for LGBTQ+ employees and students, and the LGBTQIA Oral History Project founded in 2017.
However, she also noted that, despite this progress, “LGBTQ+ students show lower levels of satisfaction and belonging than their peers,” and that the country is seeing rising levels of homophobia and transphobia.
In this vein, Eisgruber alluded to challenges such as recent attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, using a hostile post that gained traction on X last December as an example. The post targeted the pronouns of staff in Princeton’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI). “There are people who don’t understand what DEI is all about … Inclusivity is essential to our excellence,” Eisgruber said, noting that those opposed to DEI initiatives “try to sell a false dichotomy between excellence and inclusivity.”
Eisgruber also used the event as an opportunity to discuss developments and priorities for the University, including issues such as campus expansion, free speech, mental health, and artificial intelligence.
Addressing free speech, he stated that individuals must have the freedom to make statements that are provocative or extreme. He also noted the importance of protest, including in achieving greater equality for the LGBTQ+ community, but cited the necessity of time, place, and manner rules for when and how speech is permitted.
“The fact that you can say lots of different things doesn’t mean that you can disrupt a class or a lecture or create an encampment at a university or take over a building,” he said, referencing the three-week “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Cannon Green this past spring.
During the Q&A portion of the event, two alumni raised follow-up questions about mental health in what they see as an increasingly stressful world.
Deborah Saint-Phard ’87 described the difficulties she faced as a closeted athlete at Princeton and expressed concern over past comments Eisgruber made characterizing academically rigorous environments as “fully consistent and helpful to mental health.”
Saint-Phard asked for an “evolution in ideas and an expansion of what you believe about embracing the whole student.” In response, Eisgruber acknowledged the pressures that students face, and denounced undue demands being put on students, but reaffirmed his view that “having high aspirations … is good for mental health.”
He added, “I would let the students down, both from the standpoint of mental health and from the standpoint of the education we want them to get, if we gave up on those standards [that enable students to be the very best they can be].”
Following the event, alumni enjoyed refreshments and mingled outside the auditorium.
“I wasn’t able to [attend the 2013 conference], so I was really looking forward to this one,” Barry Saiff ’83 told The Daily Princetonian. “The first day registration opened, I registered and got my hotel.” Saiff said that he had participated in one of many focus groups to plan the conference, and would be leading a small discussion group about bi-erasure on Saturday.
Saiff called Eisgruber’s remarks “thoughtful,” and said that he particularly appreciated the emphasis on allowing provocative comments to be made. “I think we should let people say things that offend others,” Saiff said. “But the question I didn’t get to ask was about when offensive speech crosses the line into harassment.”
When asked about his hopes for the conference, Lemoine Skinner ’66 said he looked forward to seeing how Princeton has changed. “When I came, there was no world at all for LGBTQ people, and I only realized my own identity over the last twenty years,” he said.
Saiff echoed this sentiment, saying that during his time at Princeton, “as far as [he] knew, there was nothing organized about LGBT life here. No support, no community.” He said that, as an undergraduate, he had been very confused, but later became a leader in the bisexual advocacy movement.
“I’m really looking for community and connection [at the conference],” he said. “I think it’s just really wonderful to be among people who are like me and who have faced the same kind of challenges.”
Michelle Miao is a contributing News writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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