PAW Should Resist ‘Resistance’

The May 2025 PAW issue seemed designed to outrage a portion of Princeton alumni. Apart from the instigation of traditional alarm at architectural atrocities, whereby each generation of Princetonians bemoans the desecration of their version of a beloved campus, a more important issue is the repeated display of political bias by unnecessarily adopting the vocabulary and intentions of the Democratic Party, using its words of “resistance” to the current administration and calling on actions aligned to Democratic Party politics. While such exhortations are fine for individuals, their appearance in a semi-official publication of Princeton University can have real consequences by providing a basis for others to challenge Princeton’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization. This is a complicated concern, expressed for Harvard in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Ira Stoll (May 5, 2025, p. A17). I urge PAW to be cautious in inadvertently harming Princeton while indulging in feel-good journalism verging on Trump Derangement Syndrome. During these difficult times for higher education, we appreciated better, elsewhere in the same PAW issue, the clear-eyed and balanced language of President Eisgruber.