Much has already been written about the BJL’s contribution to campus dialogue over the last month, the way they have propelled Princeton and Woodrow Wilson onto the national stage, and the odious responses they have provoked on campus. What I want to discuss here is the extent to which the BJL sit in was part of the resurgence of student activism at Princeton that began last year. By engaging in a new category of protest tactics, the BJL has contributed to the ongoing activist project of making visible the structures of power in the University, and where that structure is most vulnerable.
As has been pointed out several times in the pages of the Progressive, last year was characterized by a level of student activism at Princeton more diverse and significant than found on campus in recent memory. In the span of months, we saw the movement for racial justice coalesce in the wake of non-indictments of the police officers who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner; two investment/divestment campaigns launched, campus-wide debates over cultural appropriation and musical misogyny take place; and a campaign to change Princeton’s admissions policies to be more inclusive of formerly incarcerated applicants.
While the BJL sit-in may seem to be distinct from these other movements in the attention it has garnered on the national stage, the protest aligns with last year’s activism in much the same way that the disparate movements were aligned with each other: as student driven protests aimed at achieving institutional change at Princeton. A fundamental – and I would argue, unachieved – goal of all of these movements was for protestors to render apparent the ways that students could change the policies and practices of the University. The BJL contributed to that effort by employing a form of protest distinct from those we saw last year: the sit-in.
In a way, each of the major protests last year was an experiment with a different method for spurring institutional change. For the Princeton Divests Coalition (Israel/West Bank), it was divestment. For the environmental protestors of PSII, it was sustainable investment. For the Hose Bicker crowd, it was a referendum. For SPEAR’s admissions campaign, it was a mildly confrontational teach-in. To the extent that each of these extremely planned-out movements failed to generate any sort of meaningful institutional change, they spoke to the impotence of their chosen point of entry into institutional policy making at Princeton.
As a case example, let’s look at PSII (Princeton Sustainable Investment Initiative), an effort to reexamine the endowment and make it more environmentally sustainable. There are few issues as pressing to our generation or as uncontroversial to reasonable, science-understanding people as climate change. PSII was an investment-targeted movement that seemingly had everything going for it – wide, demonstrated student support, a positive framing (sustainable investment instead of divestment), an extreme willingness on the part of the organizers to work with and within the bureaucracy, and a clear target for their action with articulated guidelines for change – CPUC. CPUC, or, the Council of the Princeton University Community is an institutional body meant to consider questions of moral import to the University community, accept the input of the members of that community, and make recommendations to the university. Part of CPUC, the Resources Committee, deals explicitly with the University’s endowment, and is self-identified as the institutional body that deals with divestment. Last Spring, CPUC rejected PSII in what many saw as a prime example of the University brushing aside legitimate concerns of student activists. To many observers, myself included, this sent a signal: even the most reasonable, limited, non-politicized attempts to influence the investment of the University’s endowment will be frustrated. For student protestors, the message was clear – divestment campaigns don’t work at Princeton.
This sort of conclusion is especially significant in a context in which diverse student groups are constantly trying to change the status quo. Activist groups at Princeton, limited in number and membership, have to choose their battles. Part of the calculus that shapes those choices has to do with the feasibility of success for a particular tactic. When a movement as straightforward as PSII is unable to gain traction within a clearly articulated institutional process after a year of nonstop organizing, other groups take note and are less likely to launch similar campaigns. Speaking as a leader of an activist group – Students for Prison Education and Reform – I can say that PSII’s failure influenced my decision not to advocate a prison-divest movement within my group.
Which brings us back to BJL. While anti-racist protesters were active last year (under the aegis of Post-Ferguson at Princeton) with events such as the die-in and march on Prospect Street, the BJL’s sit-in in November marked a categorical shift in the kind of tactics that modern student protestors at Princeton have employed. Sit-ins, of course, are nothing new. In fact, they are perhaps the go-to tactic for nonviolent direct action. What is new is the use of this mildly risky tactic by traditionally risk-averse Princeton students. The sit-in marks a significant shift in the way that activism is conceptualized on campus.
Other movements in the last two years have relied on broad-based, grassroots student organizing in combination with sit down meetings with administrators. This has basically been a way for organizers to show how much support the groups’ demands had among the student body by getting a minimal buy-in from a maximum amount of people – a petition signature, a referendum vote, a body at a rally. The BJL’s sit in inverted that model by instead asking a small group of protestors to totally commit to the movement – to the point of risking disciplinary action. But the students who stayed the night in Nassau hall committed more than just their bodies and their academic future to the movement to make Princeton’s a university environment less suffused by institutional racism and white supremacy – they also tacitly agreed to endure the relentless backlash that has ensued: from Yik-Yak, the Prince, Fox News and the Princeton Open Campus Coalition. In exchange for injecting passion and energy into activism at Princeton, they exposed themselves to the passion and energy that has been mustered by conservative and change-averse elements of the University. By propelling their movement onto the national stage, they became vulnerable to the slings and arrows of reactionary elements across the country and within online comment sections. Embodying the best of students at Princeton, they triggered the worst.
It is yet to be seen whether the BJL’s demands will be met, and whether the sit-in will have achieved actual institutional change at Princeton. What is clear is that the movement has been more successful than any other in Princeton’s recent history at garnering attention, spurring debate, and forcing the administration to react on protestors’ terms. None of this is to say that sit-ins should now be the preferred method of protest at Princeton. There are a whole host of issues that demand activism but are unsuited to such direct, confrontational action against the University administration. But the BJL has performed an invaluable service to campus activists by demonstrating that there are alternatives – effective alternatives – to popular grass roots organizing that can galvanize conversations about change. By watching the rippling effects of the sit-in at Princeton, we all learn more about how the University conceptualizes the agency of its students and understands its own ability to change.
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