“Princeton in the nation’s service and the service of humanity” is the unofficial motto of our University. At Princeton, opportunities for service abound: Community Action programs are undertaken by first-years, a myriad of opportunities in service organizations are offered by the Pace Center, and service internships are easily accessible. Look no further than Princeton Internships in Civic Service or Princeton’s International Internship Program. However, by promoting mostly volunteer- and advocacy-based service, Princeton preemptively restricts the possibility for disruptive activism on campus.
The Pace Center, which oversees service activities at Princeton, defines service as “responding to those needs in the world around you with which you can engage in a responsible way and with ever-widening concern and attentiveness.” The Center continues by connecting service to civic engagement or responding to those needs “by scaling up [students’] understanding of the structural dimension of those needs and responding to them by connecting to (and in some cases, challenging) civil and political institutions and organizations, in a responsible way.”
Yet, with this definition, the University limits the scope of what is considered service and therefore constrains how students engage with dissent on campus and beyond. Though the Pace Center’s definition of civic engagement described above encourages dissent to an extent by including a call to “challenge” institutions, this endorsement is deemphasized in parentheses in comparison with the call to “connect” to those institutions. This language deprioritizes taking action to disrupt an institution, implicitly encouraging students to work within rather than outside that institution for change. Moreover, the definition says that community engagement should be done “in a responsible way.” “Responsible” service implies service which avoids mass protests or strikes. This definition necessarily restricts the arena for systemic change.
We can see the restricted nature of Princeton-sponsored service projects by the types of service offered. For instance, the Student Volunteers Council (SVC), a student-run volunteer organization, promotes volunteer projects in fields like education, health, and hunger. These projects aim to help individuals suffering because of our current educational, medical, and food security deficits, making people’s lives tangibly better. The SVC outlines its five core principles as follows: reciprocity and learning in service; awareness of historical and societal contexts; responsiveness to community and student strengths; fostering long-term interpersonal relationships; and culture of accountability and dedication. Nowhere in these principles does the SVC say it hopes to end the disparities that cause its own volunteerism to be necessary in the first place.
Because volunteer service may only address the effects of inequality or systemic oppression, it is considered apolitical, an axiomatic good. Therefore, Princeton can use its commitment to service as a marketing tool and avoid creating any controversy from donors, families, alumni, and students invested in preserving unjust systems. The University’s choice to emphasize this type of service directs the next generation of leaders “in the nation’s service” to think and act mostly within the confines of the current system.
The University further restricts radical changemaking by moving activism under the broader umbrella of advocacy, transforming it into something more palatable. “Student advocacy and activism organizations provide undergraduate and graduate students with the opportunity to put their ideas into action,” the Pace Center says on its website. “An advocacy organization is a group of students who have come together, in the spirit of civic engagement, to lead and advocate on behalf of a social issue…” Notice that after the first sentence, the word activism is dropped entirely. The Center proceeds to define advocacy without explaining activism, which diverts the attention of would-be changemakers towards the former and away from the latter.
The difference between activism and advocacy is subtle but has crucial implications for the range of activity the University endorses. To advocate involves within-the-system work and necessitates being a participant in the decision-making process alongside or supporting the people in power. At Princeton, we see this type of action in organizations such as the Princeton Student Climate Initiative or the Undergraduate Student Council—both of which work with experts, elected officials, and administration to advance change. Activism can be much more disruptive, entailing mass protests, civil disobedience, and even (though less common) arrestable actions. The Black Justice League’s 32-hour occupation of President Eisgruber’s office in 2015 falls under this category. The League had a list of demands, including that the University remove the name Woodrow Wilson from campus programs and buildings. Their controversial action forced the University to agree to some of their demands, leading to reluctant yet substantive change. By funneling students into advocacy, the University can preempt this difficult-to-handle activism which publicly discredits Princeton.
In addition, after the University concedes to activist demands, it claims credit for the changes it makes without acknowledging the work of those activists. We can see this as recently as the decision to divest and partially dissociate from fossil fuels. Board of Trustees Chair Weezie Sams said of the decision to divest: “It is thanks to [Princeton faculty members’] work, and the engagement of many members of the University community, that we’re able to take these steps today.” Sams did not directly mention the role of student, faculty, and alumni activists in the Princeton Sustainable Investment Initiative and Divest Princeton who pressured the University to divest for nearly a decade. He referenced them only as part of the “University community” as a whole. This is not a new strategy. The University has sought to diminish the role of activism in policy reform many times, from the Black Justice League’s wins to Princeton IX Now’s victories in strengthening the University Title IX system. By concealing the role of disruptive activists in improving University policy, Princeton portrays their impact as negligible.
The result of the University’s prioritization of advocacy and dismissal of activism is evident in the list of “advocacy and activism” student organizations sponsored by Princeton. Most of these organizations (with some important exceptions) support issues that are not controversial within the University and do so through non-controversial means such as fundraisers, conversations, and other forms of education. Groups sponsored include Acts of Kindness, an organization aiming to create a welcoming environment on campus through “kindness initiatives,” and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which discusses drug use and drug policies and hopes to address the damages of the War on Drugs. These organizations fight for worthy causes; however, the ecosystem for political action requires support of more controversial forms of activism, too.
Princeton’s commitment to service is a tactic which serves to preemptively manage dissent on campus. By directing students to volunteer-based service, the University focuses on remediating the effects of injustices rather than the arrangements which produce those unjust effects. And, even when giving resources to political organizations, the University preemptively waters down radical organizing through bundling activism into less controversial advocacy and hiding the successes of activist groups on campus. This is one of the myriad ways Princeton actively supports the general political apathy in our community. And it has real consequences for the future, encouraging students to engage with service throughout their lives—just not service that fights for systemic change.
As students, we must adopt dissent as an organizing tactic to show that beyond the volunteerism peddled by Princeton, there is a viable and radical way of forging a better future.
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