After issuing a vague statement passionately insisting that they support the First Amendment, which, presumably, they already did, Princeton’s faculty announced Friday that they also supported the main body of the Constitution, as well as the other amendments that have been made to it, and affirmed that the statement was meant to affirm the Constitution and had no deeper subtext or intent.
“It’s all good,” Eisgruber, a longtime Constitution enthusiast, said to assembled students Friday afternoon. “We really like the First Amendment, but honestly, we think they’re all great. The Twenty-Fifth? Very nice!”
University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua assured the media that the faculty would be getting around to writing long resolutions voicing support for other basic human freedoms “really soon” and that they released the one regarding the First Amendment early because they were “psyched to release it.”
“We apologize if anyone took this to mean that we were preemptively silencing student dissent,” Mbugua said. “We weren’t trying to import a debate from the University of Chicago, and we totally weren’t trying to send a message to students that, should a controversy over a campus speaker emerge, they would not be listened to.”
“We like the whole thing,” Mbugua added in a moment of unusual candor. “The Third Amendment is my favorite – it’s totally due for a comeback.”
Students appreciated the clarification.
“I assumed they were telling us that it wasn’t our place to comment on speakers who come to campus, since that was basically the intent of the Chicago thing and there’s been a national dialogue about that in recent months,” said Elena Staubach ’18. “It’s nice to know that they actually just meant they loved the Bill of Rights and stuff.”
Eisgruber, former director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs and a self-professed “total constitution geek,” said he was “relieved that whole thing was over” and assured students that they would continue to have the right to speak up against things they perceived to be unjust.
“As long as that’s cleared up,” he said. “Constitution good, amendments good!”
“Except the Eighteenth Amendment,” he added. “That one sucked.”
– SBW ’15