PRINCETON, N.J. (U-WIRE) - A day of protest against Princeton University's hiring of controversial bioethicist Peter Singer culminated Tuesday in the arrest of 14 activists, who were dragged away from Nassau Hall after sealing off the building for two hours.
About 30 wheelchair-bound protesters and several other disability-rights advocates from Not Dead Yet barricaded all five entrances to Nassau Hall - trapping University officials inside and preventing at least two deans from entering - before being removed by Princeton Public Safety officers around 1:30 p.m.
Just hours before, about 200 protesters descended on a soggy campus while singing, "Shapiro promotes murder," and wielding posters that compared Princeton to Auschwitz.
Meanwhile, at the Center for Human Values, Singer's first seminar proceeded without incident. Public Safety officers rimmed the building to ensure that only authorized students could enter the class.
"Singer was an incredibly open and amiable man," said Princeton junior Hyeseung Song, one of Singer's students. "It was like a regular course."
Nevertheless, the day was anything but typical for more than a dozen Public Safety officers who found themselves attempting to police a rally that began outside FitzRandolph gate at 10 a.m.
Protesters, including pro-life, anti-euthanasia and disabled-rights activists, stood in the steady rain, periodically chanting, "We're not dead yet," until 11:30 a.m. At that point the crowd began to pour through the gates and converge on Nassau Hall - where it soon became apparent that Not Dead Yet members were attempting to seal off the University's central administrative offices.
There they stayed until Public Safety, local police and state troopers surrounded them with metal barricades, warned them to leave and then charged them with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
The Princeton Borough Police helped proctors process the arrests but the physical removal of activists was left to campus security. None of those arrested were New Jersey residents.
Shortly after being dragged away from the north entrance of Nassau Hall, Not Dead Yet self-proclaimed "ambulatory wheelchair warrior" Eileen Sabel chided Shapiro for not answering the protesters' demands.
"The administration wouldn't give us the courtesy of a response, so we escalated," she said. Sabel added that it was the 40th time she had been arrested in the past decade.
University spokesperson Justin Harmon dismissed Not Dead Yet members as attention-seekers. "This is their little moment of political theater, and they've been planning it for a while," he said.
Despite the intensity of Tuesday's protest, it may well have marked Not Dead Yet's final appearance on campus.
Group president Diane Coleman said her organization - which has been the central presence at anti-Singer rallies - would not return to campus. But New Jersey Right to Life Director of Public Affairs Marie Tasy said her group will continue to demonstrate at the University.
No University students were among the protesters blocking entrances to the building. Chris Benek, president of Princeton Students Against Infanticide, a group that helped organize the rally, took pains to distance his organization from the activists who sealed off Nassau Hall.
"We have taken ourselves away from them because we don't want to do something that's against University policy," said Benek, who retreated to Nassau Street shortly after the standoff between protesters and Public Safety began to intensify.
Benek was one of only a few University students to attend the protest. Villanova University's pro-life organization sent about a dozen student representatives.
"[Singer's appointment is] personally offensive to we who believe in respect for life at all stages," Villanova sophomore John McMichael said, explaining why the group made the trip to Princeton. McMichael said he has not read any of Singer's writings.
09-23-99
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