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A social club at Princeton University reportedly changed its visitors' policy after an unnamed professor joined a student there for lunch.
In an op-ed published in The Daily Princetonian, Princeton student Matthew Wilson argued that the school's unique "eating club" system is at danger of becoming "ideological safe spaces" for students.
"The eating clubs, like the University as a whole, must avoid becoming ideological echo chambers or so-called safe spaces where people go to avoid the risk of having their convictions or worldview challenged," Wilson wrote. "Unfortunately, Charter’s new visitors policy — enacted to protect students from those whose ideas and mere existence they erroneously and ridiculously believe threaten their safety — does just the opposite. The new policy is intellectually indefensible and must be immediately revoked."
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A social club at Princeton University reportedly changed its visitors policy after it received a visit from a conservative professor. (Getty Images)
Anna Johns, the president of Charter, an eating club at Princeton, "announced an abrupt change to the club’s visitors policy," according to Wilson. "In order to maintain an ‘inclusive environment’ and communicate that Charter is a 'sanctuary' for its members, Johns wrote in a club-wide group chat, visitors who are not family members or friends would henceforth not be permitted to enter the club during its 'hours of food service operations' without prior approval from undergraduate officers, club staff, and the alumni Board of Governors."
"Within minutes following the announcement, I learned from friends that the policy had been crafted in direct response to student complaints about my Feb. 14 lunch with my professor," Wilson explained.
According to Solveig Gold, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and former Princeton student, that professor was Robert P. George. She wrote on X, "One of Princeton’s eating clubs (co-ed frats) has instituted a new visitors policy after a student brought @McCormickProf to lunch—because his very presence at the club made members feel unsafe!"
Professor George did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital, but he did reply to Gold on the social media platform, writing, "So ... Students have to give notice to bring me as a guest for lunch at a club ... that I myself belong to? And, as a member, am entitled to use whenever I like, and bring guests of my own? (By the way, Solveig, when are you available to be my guest for lunch at Charter Club?)"
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Wilson defended his right to have lunch at the social club with a professor at Princeton. (John Greim)
Wilson defended his right to have lunch at the social club with a professor at Princeton.
"The simple fact that they had to eat lunch in the same building as him — a respected professor at this university who many Charter students have taken classes with and even praised — was too much to handle," he wrote.
"It was a grave error for Charter’s leadership to bend to the demands of a few students who couldn’t stomach the possibility of being within shouting distance of someone whose views challenge their own," Wilson argued. "No campus organizations, eating clubs included, should surrender to the proponents of illiberalism and ideological intolerance in the way that Charter’s leadership did here."
Implying that Professor George was the faculty member in question, Wilson suggested a campus double standard: "Who was the professor in the story? Was it Dan-el Padilla Peralta, whose presence was objected to by conservative Catholic and Evangelical students outraged by his rejection of their ‘traditional’ beliefs? Or was it Robert George, whose presence was objected to by progressive students outraged by his relentless questioning of their left-wing ideological convictions?"
Princeton University did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Jeffrey Clark is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. He has previously served as a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea. Jeffrey graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a degree in English and History.
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