Setting the record straight: Ruha Benjamin should defend her accusation

The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.

In her interview with Mother Jones, Ruha Benjamin, Princeton’s Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies and latest MacArthur Fellow, confirmed that the University is investigating her role in the April 29 Clio Hall protest. As someone who called upon the University to investigate faculty involvement in the Clio Hall takeover, I welcome this development.

In the interview, Professor Benjamin made two salient criticisms of the University administration. First, she highlighted the University’s unwillingness to include her remarks about this investigation in its announcement about her receipt of the MacArthur Award. Second, she denounced “lies that the administration had claimed about what students were doing during the demonstration.”

Benjamin can now resolve these concerns and help inform the Princeton University community by openly calling upon the University to make its investigation — and any subsequent disciplinary proceedings for her role in the Clio Hall occupation — public on an ongoing basis. Such an action would help our Princeton community gain a fuller and more timely understanding of her weighty charges against the University. They would contribute to our current debates about freedom of expression at Princeton and what appropriate time, place, and manner restrictions and punishments the University may impose on protesters and non-student participants. The information from the University investigation into Benjamin might further complement the municipal court trial of the arrested Clio protesters.

In the spring, Benjamin acted as the self-described faculty observer for the Clio protests, and for the vitriolic May 3 Faculty Letter that called for the resignation of Vice President Rochelle Calhoun, Benjamin was a prominent signatory. This letter proclaimed that Calhoun’s April 30 message to students was “a lie negated by the eyewitness account of the primary faculty observer who entered the building with the student protesters.” Benjamin was that “faculty observer” and author of the referenced “eyewitness account,” “Statement from Princeton Faculty on Clio Hall.”

Benjamin was also one of the six faculty members who had petitioned for the special Princeton faculty meeting held on May 20. Her May 1 Statement and the May 3 Faculty Letter likely informed the vote supporting amnesty for the Clio Hall arrestees at that faculty meeting. But whether the statement and letter did so fairly or not depends heavily on Benjamin’s veracity about the Clio Hall events. Further, in her Mother Jones interview, Benjamin criticized the University investigators for “assuming I was leading the students versus observing and supporting them.” Benjamin and the University should agree to make this interview public.

Other sources now available on the events at Clio Hall that resulted in 13 protesters’ arrest illuminate, but do not fully resolve, the question of students’ actions and Benjamin’s leadership. These sources flatly contradict Benjamin’s May 1 claims that she acted merely as “a non-participant faculty observer.”

I cited some of these in a May opinion, like the video of the event that shows associate professor and protest supporter Max Weiss proclaiming to the cheering crowd outside Clio Hall, “One faculty member has occupied this building. Her name is Ruha Benjamin.”

Moreover, Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) noted, “A photo also captured Benjamin standing in the open window speaking to the crowd through a bullhorn.” The National Review repeated this. PAW quoted Benjamin — wearing academic robes — exhorting to that crowd, “Every artist, every scientist must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers.” By her own words from inside occupied Clio Hall, Benjamin was no impartial observer.

Benjamin’s adornment in academic robes suggest that she had prior knowledge of the march on Clio Hall. The extent to which she may have had a role in planning the events that unfolded, including the extent to which Benjamin was “leading the students versus observing and supporting them,” awaits public assessment by the University investigation.

Further, Benjamin recently professed to The Chronicle of Higher Education that her status as a senior faculty member “makes me feel more responsibility to use that position to say things that others can’t.” Despite this professed responsibility and her actions and statements during the Clio Hall occupation, Benjamin neither joined those students she had encouraged nor does it appear she dissuaded them from accepting arrest.

In her Mother Jones interview, professor Benjamin has again accused the University administration of lying about the Clio Hall occupation as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the facts. Given professor Benjamin’s status as a highly honored member of the Princeton faculty, the University should publicize its current investigation and Ruha Benjamin should substantiate and defend her claims. Otherwise, she must make the honorable choice to release an earnest and full apology for her accusations. Rather than hide in a damning silence, the University and Benjamin have the opportunity to be open and show the courage to address these issues.