In Short

The University is investigating a DEMONSTRATION conducted March 8 by graduate students in East Pyne Hall as part of the International Women’s Strike, which coincided with International Women’s Day. “The disruption of classes is a serious violation of University policies,” President Eisgruber ’83 said in a letter to 36 professors who had written to him about the protest. If the action disrupted classes, he said, the deans of the faculty and of the Graduate School would begin “appropriate disciplinary proceedings.”

The professors, from at least 15 academic departments, said in their letter to Eisgruber that graduate students had “deliberately invaded and disrupted as many as eight classes.” They called for swift and decisive action to prevent “more and more bullying and intimidation in the future.”

The professors wrote that the demonstration took place “in the wake of Professor Lawrence Rosen’s decision to cancel a class after being subjected to what was or was close to an act of intimidation” (see PAW, March 27). Eisgruber, in his response, said “the two episodes are very different.” If Rosen had complained about his class being disrupted, the University would have investigated, Eisgruber said. But he said Rosen has maintained that “the proper response to the provocative speech in his clssroom is ‘more speech,’ in the form of campus discussion, not University disciplinary action.”

President Eisgruber expressed “deep concerns” over proposed changes in FEDERAL IMMIGRATION RULES. “Attracting the best talent, regardless of national origin, is essential to maintaining America’s status as the global leader in scholarship and research,” he said in a March 8 letter to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristjen Nielsen. 

Eisgruber said he was “particularly troubled” by proposed changes to the J-1 exchange visa and Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs, saying the result could discourage talented students, faculty, and researchers from coming to the United States or from remaining in the country. A University spokesman said there are 128 students and 417 postdocs, researchers, and faculty members at Princeton on the J-1 exchange visa and 287 student participants in Optional Practical Training.

Police SHOT AND KILLED a 56-year-old Lawrenceville, N.J., man March 20 in the Panera Bread restaurant on Nassau Street across from campus, several hours after he entered the restaurant with a gun. Customers and employees were able to escape the building without injury. The shooting ended a lengthy standoff in which negotiators tried to get the suspect to surrender, according to the state attorney general’s office, which was investigating.