The Prog is always accepting writers, content editors, and design editors.
We accept articles from a leftist perspective on a variety of topics, so no matter your interest, The Prog can be a wonderful forum to express your ideas and find community with fellow campus leftists. As a writer, you can report on the work of student activists, interview professors doing interesting research, embark on your own research projects, or adapt papers you’ve written for classes.
Our Mission
We believe in a broad progressivism that is less of a distinct party platform and more of an approach to dealing with politics. Our progressivism is about introducing new voices and perspectives from disparate ideologies, challenging both the liberal and conservative discourses dominating U.S. politics. This publication has a unique role on campus: bringing those voices together. Today, we want to promote a culture of leftist dialogue on a campus where strong political convictions have traditionally been absent, taking critical stances against the oppressions of racism, sexism, queerphobia, imperialism, capitalism, and militarism.
We invite you to join us. Help us show that even Princeton has left-wing voices that are ready to be heard.
Our Sponsors
Our magazine is generously supported by the Princeton Progressives (PPro) alumni group. PPro is network of Princetonians who share a commitment to progressive values. Special thanks to the alumni and members of the PPro, who provided us with the guidance and experience to reinvigorate The Prog post-lockdown.
Our History
In 1968, Princeton students participated in the March on Washington to protest the Vietnam War. They carried a sign that read “Even Princeton,” making a statement that, despite the dominance of conservative politics on campus, Princeton students were still willing to take a principled stance against an unjust war. Today, the prevailing perception that our campus is apathetic or conservative still exists. But we choose to stand with those students who, risking arrest and abuse in 1968, asserted a different Princeton narrative. That is the historical legacy that motivates us at The Princeton Progressive.
In the early 1980s, a group of students formed The Princeton Progressive Review, a magazine inspired by an earlier socialist publication, covering the 1995 sit-in protests for Asian American and Latino Studies programs, and interviewing academics such as Noam Chomsky. The Princeton College Democrats formed a competing liberal newspaper, Idealistic Nation, in 2001.
In 2005, Idealistic Nation and The Princeton Progressive Review co-organized the “Frist filibuster” at Frist Campus Center to protest against Republican Senator Bill Frist’s proposal of a nuclear option, and in favor of… protecting the U.S. Senate filibuster? Though perhaps strange today, the protest garnered widespread national media attention and spanned more than two weeks, seeing visitors including Representatives Rush Holt Jr. and Frank Pallone, and Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek.
In the same year, The Progressive Review and the Idealistic Nation merged to form The Princeton Progressive Nation (PPN) to unite progressive journalism under one roof. For the 2008 election, PPN staffers staged a protest skit titled, “I Could Be John McCain’s Econ 101 Teacher.” The skit, conducted outside Frist Campus Center, included one student acting as “the teacher,” lecturing another student (“John McCain”) with elementary supply and demand curves on a whiteboard. In 2009, the PPN published an opinion piece by staff writer Emily Rutherford advocating gender-neutral housing, pushing this issue to the fore. Rutherford’s engagement with student government and the University administration resulted in gender-neutral dorm rooms being partially implemented in the 2010-2011 academic year as a pilot program, and eventually expanded in 2017 to include any multiple-occupancy dorm rooms.
In 2011, the PPN brought the national anti-capitalist Occupy movement to Princeton, with nationally-reported “mic checks” at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs recruiting sessions on campus. Twenty PPN staffers and other students dressed in business attire and hijacked each of the sessions to “protest the campus culture that whitewashes the crooked dealings of Wall Street as a prestigious career path” and to highlight unethical business practices leading up to the Great Recession.
We covered the Black Justice League’s occupation of Nassau Hall in November 2015, and published the group’s statements and demands via our website. We were one of two Princeton publications to provide live coverage of the occupation for racial justice.
In 2019, we increased our publication frequency to every two weeks. We dedicated an issue to the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries and sent our reporters on canvassing trips to New Hampshire made by YDS at Princeton (now YDSA).
In 2022, we dedicated ourselves to rebounding from the pandemic because of the great need for a publication to unify leftist campus groups and provide them with a platform, evolving toward new perspectives. We began first publishing online but continued our print publications in Fall 2022 after almost two years. Now, The Prog plans to publish two to three issues each semester and expand our readership and members through diversifying our article formats.
We have worked to platform such efforts as Princeton Committee on Palestine’s referendum to divest from Caterpillar, YDSA’s efforts to support labor and ecosocialist organizing, Divest Princeton’s work in pressuring the University toward fossil fuel divestment, AJP’s unification of Jewish leftists for community and Palestinian liberation, and more.
Ultimately, we strive to provide readers with insightful research and left-wing commentary on a variety of topics, as we and the leftist community continue evolving. Join us and become part of our project to amplify leftist voices on campus and continue the legacy of progressive thought and activism!