Reacting to Piegaro’s Trial

I also am “surprised at and disappointed in how the university has dealt with this situation,” as Mr. Piegaro states. Without intrepid student journalists willing to brave the antagonism of their peers and professors, blatant instances of antisemitism and patent Title VI violations at Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, and elsewhere, now the basis for federal government actions, would have gone undocumented. In Mr. Piegaro’s eyes, what was the difference between the unidentified Mr. Strother and the pro-encampment, self-appointed “faculty marshals” seen on other campuses, similarly limiting the freedom of movement of student “Zionists”?

In declining to intervene in the case, the University was clearly pursuing a “both sides” approach, to mirror its lack of active intervention in the Clio Hall 13 case, which is still to be decided. This approach was misguided, because where the Clio Hall 13 indisputably trespassed and left terrified campus staff, Mr. Piegaro did not commit any indisputably illegal acts, as the court testimony showed, but was himself left with injuries and a concussion, while the “victim” was completely unharmed.

In the year since the Princeton encampment, two of its faculty supporters, Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta ’06 and Professor Max Weiss (mentioned in the article), have been promoted to full professor, significantly advancing them professionally. Mr. Piegaro, meanwhile, has had to fight charges that would put his ability to maintain a security clearance at risk, a significant professional challenge for one with prior military experience who would otherwise be in great demand for national security jobs. It need hardly be said that the professors are supposed to be campus leaders, while Mr. Piegaro is an undergraduate.

The University, therefore, has clearly not learned the lesson that the leadership of Columbia and Harvard are only now acknowledging, albeit under budgetary duress: that “both sides-ism” does not cut it, not when one side is merely seeking unmolested access to campus spaces, and the other side is pursuing a guerrilla action campaign targeting campus “Zionists” and university leaders who, in reality, have zero influence over the actions of a foreign government engaged in a war it did not start.