On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued about 1,500 pardons to individuals who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This list included Larry Giberson ’23, who was permitted to graduate in spite of his criminal charges – a decision on which the University refused to comment.
Giberson’s pardon presents an opportunity to scrutinize how the University has allowed political calculations to encroach on its commitment to a fair, objective disciplinary process.
This spring, Princeton imposed the kind of penalties that Giberson escaped on students involved in the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Jordan Johnson ’24 was a bystander at a pro-Palestinian protest in the Richardson Auditorium that disrupted President Eisgruber’s Reunions address. Larry Giberson ’23 was an active participant in a violent insurrection intended to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
Yet in a blatant perversion of justice, Johnson had his Princeton degree withheld for over a week, and Giberson was quietly granted his diploma on time even after he’d been charged with six violations of the U.S. code.
This discrepancy reveals that Princeton is administering justice like Trump, arbitrarily determining who gets leniency and who gets punished based not on principles but on political expediency. Giberson’s recent pardon should serve as a wake-up call about the new era of far-right political dominance, and an impetus for the University to commit to not allowing their policies to be influenced by fear of right-wing backlash.
It’s not as though Princeton doesn’t have disciplinary guidelines to refer to in situations like Giberson’s. As I argued in the ‘Prince’ in 2023, Princeton’s Rights, Rules, Responsibilities (RRR) policy manual clearly outlines how this case should have been handled.
The manual stipulates that “deliberate participation in a riot” is an “extremely serious offense” and “violations of local, state, and federal law … may trigger University disciplinary action regardless of where such violations occur.” According to these regulations, Giberson’s diploma should have been withheld, or at least revoked after his conviction in November 2023.
There seem to be clear political motivations for Princeton’s disciplinary hypocrisy. The University undoubtedly recognizes that the Ivy League is one of the right-wing media’s favorite scapegoats – and it has successfully avoided the fate of many of its peer institutions. For instance, while Harvard and Penn’s presidents were forced to resign due to controversy over their responses to pro-Palestinian protests, Eisgruber remained largely unscathed. And when Pete Hegseth theatrically disavowed his Harvard diploma on Fox News in 2022, he wasn’t ready to give the same treatment to his Princeton degree.
Princeton has remained relatively sheltered from the anti-intellectualism rampant in our political climate; harshly disciplining left-wing alleged protesters while sweeping the more severe transgressions of right-wing agitators under the rug may be an attempt to mitigate right-wing ire. But this double standard undermines the principles of justice that Princeton claims to uphold.
While the University turned a blind eye to RRR with regards to Giberson’s case, they readily sought disciplinary actions in the cases of pro-Palestinian students. According to a ‘Prince’ investigation, undergraduates arrested at the Clio Hall sit-in on April 29th, 2024 were found to have violated the University’s disorderly and disrespectful conduct policy (RRR 2.2.5) and punished with 48 months of disciplinary probation – the maximum length for this penalty.
Laurence Drayton ’26 was investigated for his participation in the Richardson Auditorium protest but ultimately was found guilty of failing to “cooperate fully in the disciplinary process” (RRR 1.1.5) – a charge that feels less like a fair punishment for a real infraction and instead like a frivolous attempt to impose a consequence, any consequence.
The message is clear: Princeton cares about discipline only so long as it won’t risk embroiling the University in a political quagmire.
The selective, Trumpian nature of Princeton’s approach to discipline also manifests in the narrative of presumed guilt with which the University investigated pro-Palestinian protesters. For instance, one student reported that University investigators “list[ed] the names of specific faculty members and ask[ed] if protesters had received instructions from them.” This mirrors the Trump administration’s mandate that federal workers inform on “disguised” DEI programs.
Princeton is an institution at least ostensibly dedicated to the liberal ideals and protection of free inquiry that Trump attacks and the selfless service of humanity that Trump dismisses in favor of serving himself. But seeking retribution against perceived foes without just cause? Granting impunity to those who perpetrate violence because it is politically convenient? Grasping at straws when the facts don’t fit a myopic worldview? Trump would certainly approve.
The disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
For instance, as my colleague Jorge Reyes noted in a recent ‘Prince’ op-ed, the University failed to warn international students to return to campus before Trump’s inauguration, a measure taken by peer institutions like Harvard.
While President Eisgruber’s Tuesday email to the Princeton community stressed the establishment of a “process for systematically reviewing all orders and policy directives and assessing their impact,” this is not a commitment to protect the campus community from Trump’s policy changes. This contrasts starkly with peer institutions like Brown, which vowed to use its “legal right” to challenge laws that imperil its mission, and Stanford, whose president called a new federal funding freeze “extraordinary and disruptive.” Princeton’s hesitance corroborates that the University has been cowed by a corrosive and radical politics that jeopardizes its very existence.
If Princeton wants to remain a beacon of liberalism, justice, and service to humanity in the (second) Trump era, it needs to ensure that the same disciplinary procedures are applied to all students accused of violating University policy, regardless of their political affiliation – or the increasing likelihood of backlash from an aspiring authoritarian’s sycophantic cronies.
Head Opinion Editor Frances Brogan is a sophomore prospective History major from Lancaster, Pa. She can be reached at frances.brogan[at]princeton.edu.
Read More
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
Return Pete Hegseth’s educational ideologies “to sender”
Lily Halbert-AlexanderHegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
Hegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
To understand America’s future, Princeton must look to Britain
Kenneth ChanThe future of America is mired in uncertainty. But if we want the closest thing to clairvoyance we can get, we must look to our friends across the pond — the British.
The future of America is mired in uncertainty. But if you want the closest thing to clairvoyance you can get, we must look to our friends across the pond — the British.
