On the afternoon of Saturday, February 13th, nearly 200 protestors gathered at FitzRandolph Gate to make six demands of Princeton University:
- Free COVID testing for the town as well as surrounding communities — and in particular, for their under- or uninsured and undocumented members
- Infrastructure for the distribution of free COVID vaccines, when they become available, once again especially for under- or uninsured and undocumented people
- Equal access to COVID healthcare for all employees of the University, regardless of their contract
- Resources allocated towards municipal contact-tracing
- Free quarantine facilities for those who are unable to shelter in their homes
- Democratic decision-making in regards to COVID safety.
The protest was one in a series of actions planned by Princeton Anti-Austerity Coalition (PAAC), Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), Princeton Mutual Aid (PMA), Princeton Graduate Student Union (PGSU), and Princeton University Policy Student Government (PUPSG); these groups have united to demand that the University, a $26 billion institution, meet the community’s COVID-safety needs.
As of February 22nd, the Princeton Health Department and Navus Health will provide free testing to under- and uninsured community members twice a week. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. The clinic will only be able to test a maximum of 50 people per week — not nearly enough for this community, and a fraction of what Princeton University could offer. The University’s own response, communicated by its Deputy Vice President of Communications in the Daily Princetonian’s coverage, fails to adequately address our concerns.
In response to PAAC, ULA, PMA, PGSU and PUPSG’s assertion that the decision to bring back students was made unilaterally and undemocratically, administrators quoted in the Prince claim that the University “did, in fact, consult with elected officials.” The parties listed as having been consulted are “local and state-wide public health leaders, government officials, and many others.” This statement encapsulates the twin problem with the University’s decision making regarding the return of the students: “consultation” can mean many things but does not necessitate executive power if the parties consulted do not also have the power to vote and veto plans; “consultation” with elected officials is not the same as the formation of an elected commission made up of representatives of the community, faculty, students, and staff to decide.
The administration makes sure to emphasize its connection to elected officials who represent the community even as our university officials themselves are decidedly unelected and unrepresentative of our university’s constituencies.
We should also take a closer look at another one of the University’s attempts to make the protest’s core demands invalid: as quoted in the Daily Princetonian, they claim that the government approval for Princeton’s saliva testing allows the University to only test “its own students, faculty, staff, and limited others who work or live on campus.” If this “binding contract” is the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization referenced in the University’s “Informed Consent for COVID-19 Testing” document, it is neither clear from that document nor from the relevant U.S. legal code that testing must be restricted to a certain demographic. An author of this piece also has confirmation from the Federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment Program (CLIA) that such restrictions would not come from their end.
In an email exchange with the same author, a Deputy University Spokesperson clarified that when Executive Vice President Treby Williams made a similar argument about a “license,” she “was referring not to CLIA or state licensure, but to a contract, or license, through which the University acquired the know how to stand up the lab and use the saliva test it is using, which was developed by another entity.” When asked about the University’s decision to engage with such an “entity” despite its restrictions, the Spokesperson replied, “We went to the only partner that could provide saliva testing technology and the know-how that would enable the University to accomplish, in a very short period of time, the difficult task of building and obtaining governmental approval for a clinical laboratory to serve the campus community.” He did not respond to an email, sent on January 21st, requesting to know the name of this partner. Let us assume that it was the “partner”’s decision to restrict testing to University staff, faculty, and students — could a University with billions of dollars not fund another testing program? Could they have found a different “entity” with fewer restrictions?
And yet, for what possible reason would any healthcare “entity” restrict on a non-medical basis who can and cannot receive COVID tests, in exchange for “know-how”? This is beyond perplexing, not to mention wholly inadequate as a supposed justification for why the University cannot provide COVID tests to local residents.
The administration’s opaque explanations here and elsewhere only make it more evident why a democratic approach to the University’s COVID response is urgently necessary: if decisions surrounding COVID plans were made democratically, we would know the nature of this restriction on testing, we would see how binding it is, and we would understand how it came to be a part of the University’s testing contract. Most importantly, we would know what needs to be done to get local communities what they need.
The third aspect of the University’s argument that is worth our examination is their abrupt dismissal of the comparison between UC Davis and Princeton with regards to their respective capacities to provide COVID services to the local community. Responding to protesters’ reference to the California university’s comprehensive testing, tracing, and quarantine-housing services for their local community as a model for what Princeton could become, the University says that such a comparison is “not valid,” given the different funding structures of the two universities.
Princeton University would have us believe that the composition of Princeton’s enormous private funding somehow makes it incapable of providing these basic services to local residents. They have the money, more than enough — but their hands are tied, simply because they have so much of it.
There is a final point made in the Prince we must respond to:
Princeton University is not a hospital, a health care provider, or a commercial clinical lab. And unlike many of its peers, it does not have a medical school or a school of public health. Princeton focuses on teaching and research and created a clinical testing lab so it can pursue its fundamental mission despite the pandemic. Princeton can — and is — making a difference during this pandemic through its research and teaching [Authors’ Note: And this, despite our lack of school of public health!], not by becoming a health care provider.
All of what the University says is very true, and it has nothing to do with what we claim. We are not asking the University not to be a university — we are simply insistent upon the reality of the situation, that we are in the unique position of having billions of dollars at our disposal when so many are suffering around us. Princeton alone can mobilize the funds necessary to meet the needs of its surrounding communities.
As a result, another point, quoted in a Town Topics article, that such an expansion would put “tremendous strain on the dedicated staff of University Health Services and staff across the University who are assisting with the program,” is totally moot, as well as yet another strawman. We are asking the University to spend more money to expand the Health Services, precisely so that they would not have to be so strained.
Amid the haze of the administration’s constant misdirection, what can we be left with but the tantalizing possibility that things could be different if we really wanted them to be? If the administration wanted them to be? If our voices were heard?
The fight does not end with a single protest. PAAC, ULA, PMA, PGSU, and PUPSG continue to struggle alongside local communities to demand COVID safety and healthcare for all.
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