As Richard Waugaman ’70 correctly suggests in his comments on Bill Hewitt ’74’s “High Stakes of Decision About DEI,” compliance with U.S. law is quite different from compliance with executive orders that are now being regularly stopped in their tracks by court injunctions for their infringement on basic Constitutional liberties. Hewitt also demands President Eisgruber’s “fidelity to fiduciary duties.” He speaks of Princeton as though it were a brokerage, not an institution of enlightenment. Is careful custodianship of the funds coming Princeton’s way from so many sources an important function of Nassau Hall? Of course. Is the “bottom line” what Princeton should be all about? No. Since Hewitt likes to quote (quite perversely, I have to say) Martin Luther King Jr., he needs to familiarize himself with the declaration King made at a speech in Chicago on Aug. 11, 1956: “We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice.”
As for Hewitt’s disdain for inclusivity and all things DEI, it is straight out of the talking points of the Trump administration, Project 2025, Fox News, etc. turning the whole point of civil rights laws on its head. When I was a child growing up in the Jim Crow South, those who opposed racial equality and fairness were frank about it, positively proud of it. Now, their ideological descendants bob and weave and cloak their bigotry in doubletalk. I almost miss those vicious old bastards of my youth.
As Richard Waugaman ’70 correctly suggests in his comments on Bill Hewitt ’74’s “High Stakes of Decision About DEI,” compliance with U.S. law is quite different from compliance with executive orders that are now being regularly stopped in their tracks by court injunctions for their infringement on basic Constitutional liberties. Hewitt also demands President Eisgruber’s “fidelity to fiduciary duties.” He speaks of Princeton as though it were a brokerage, not an institution of enlightenment. Is careful custodianship of the funds coming Princeton’s way from so many sources an important function of Nassau Hall? Of course. Is the “bottom line” what Princeton should be all about? No. Since Hewitt likes to quote (quite perversely, I have to say) Martin Luther King Jr., he needs to familiarize himself with the declaration King made at a speech in Chicago on Aug. 11, 1956: “We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice.”
As for Hewitt’s disdain for inclusivity and all things DEI, it is straight out of the talking points of the Trump administration, Project 2025, Fox News, etc. turning the whole point of civil rights laws on its head. When I was a child growing up in the Jim Crow South, those who opposed racial equality and fairness were frank about it, positively proud of it. Now, their ideological descendants bob and weave and cloak their bigotry in doubletalk. I almost miss those vicious old bastards of my youth.