TAKE ACTION: Email Princeton administrators telling them to protect Princeton students from the corrupt USG referendum process!

EMAILS: eisgrube@princeton.edu, rochelle.calhoun@princeton.edu, predebb@princeton.edu 

The Princeton Undergraduate Student Government’s (USG’s) antisemitic campaign to delegitimize and demonize Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, in a campus-wide referendum on April 11-13 failed, fair and square, as 56% of the student body voted not to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) referendum. Now, the USG has made its preferences clear by putting its thumb on the scale, changing the interpretation of the rules after voting had already closed to hand the BDS movement the victory it could not obtain at the polls.

Antisemitism has often been said to be the canary in the coal mine, as political factions which persecute Jews generally do so as the first step of an agenda which involves the destruction of democracy. Rarely has this axiom proven true more quickly or directly than with this week’s events at Princeton University. The student government has now admitted that the false direction provided to students before the result left the referendum fatally flawed and reportedly called the vote “unfair and incorrect.” Indeed, they voted to uphold the appeal against the resolution’s certification by a vote of 15-5, with 4 abstentions. Counterintuitively, despite upholding the appeal, the USG is still proceeding as if the BDS resolution - with its hateful, discriminatory impact on Jewish people - actually passed.

The facts are clear. The guidance provided by the Princeton student government’s elections manager, Brian Li, to Tigers for Israel president Jared Stone on March 28 provided that if “10 ppl vote, 4 in favor, 3 against, 3 abstain[,] That’s 40% in favor.” Based on this guidance, students leading the opposition to the resolution have asserted to the student government that they “told student after student that it was better to abstain rather than not vote at all.” 

Nevertheless, hours after voting had already ended on April 13, Brian Li abruptly changed course, telling pro-Israel student leaders that abstentions wouldn't be counted after all. As Stone said: “I was assured explicitly in writing, and repeatedly throughout the campaign in verbal form, that abstention votes would count toward the total number of votes cast. To witness this pledge being amended ex post facto, following the conclusion of student voting, is deeply troubling.”

This is especially true given that the Princeton Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Constitution provides for a referendum resolution to be binding only if “a majority of the votes cast in the referendum are in the affirmative.” (Sec. 1003(a)(2)).  The USG Constitution explicitly provides that “votes cast” include abstentions.  (Sec. 405(b) and Sec. 605(c)(2)).  Moreover, under Robert’s Rules of Order, the traditional basis of parliamentary procedure at U.S. institutions, “​​if the rules explicitly require a majority… an abstention will have the same effect as a ‘“no’” vote.”

The Princeton University Administration must now step in to protect not only the increasingly marginalized Jewish and pro-Israel members of the student body, but all student voters who have now had their rights trampled by the USG’s determination to impose their antisemitic vision regardless of popular support. The USG’s anti-democratic maneuverings are reminiscent of the world’s worst regimes, such as Russia, China, and Iran - which, interestingly, Princeton’s USG has never penalized as they have Israel’s flourishing democracy. The administration must clearly condemn the racist BDS movement and support pro-Israel and Jewish students on campus.

  If the Administration fails to intervene against this outcome, they would not only betray any semblance of democracy at the student level but lend credence to the appearance that the USG administration had its “thumb on the scale” and was determined to demonize the Jewish state, regardless of the wishes of the student body. This would recall the dark days before World War II when Princeton had strict quotas on Jewish students and later refused to admit Jewish students to eating clubs in what is known as the “dirty bicker” of 1958. Notably, this crisis is occurring less than a month after Princeton canceled an exhibition of 19th Century Jewish American art at the last minute on spurious grounds. Princeton must act now to show that the era of antisemitism and unequal treatment of Jewish students in its hallowed halls has not returned.