Princeton U Students To Continue Hunger Stike, Meeting Unproductive

PRINCETON, NJ —Pro-Palestine protesting students at Princeton University said their first meeting with the administration was unproductive and that their hunger strike will continue.

On Friday 14 Princeton students began their hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinians.

The students’ demands have been public since April 25, when they began their sit-in. The protestors want the University to divest from Israeli companies and American military funding, an academic boycott of Israel, and cultivation of academic ties with Palestinian academic institutions, including setting up scholarships for those who have been displaced from Gaza.

They also want Princeton to drop all criminal and disciplinary action against the students who were arrested and barred from campus after a sit-in at Clio Hall.

Members of the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment met with University President Christopher Eisgruber and members of the administration on Monday to discuss their demands.

“We simply presented these demands and Eisgruber gave us nothing,” a protestor said in a public statement. “We spoke of the urgency of the situation and Rafah were 1.5 million people shelter with nowhere to go as bombs rained down on them. We spoke of the health and well-being of the hunger-striking students who have committed their bodies entirely to Palestinian Liberation. One of our students shared the experience of her family's village in the West Bank being finally attacked by settlers facing mass displacement and murder and Eisgruber did not care.”

The meeting with Eisgruber comes as the hunger strike enters its fifth day.

“They've denied us the free expression that they pride themselves on arresting and disciplining our friends. They've denied us the right to encamp properly, forcing hunger-striking students to starve in the cold and rain all weekend long, denying them basic shelter,” another member of the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment said.

“We've submitted requests through every formal and procedural channel, spending the past eight months on petitions, protests, attending CPUC meetings, and countless requests by students and faculty to meet. And they refused us the right to me until this sham meeting, which was nothing more than a symbolic gesture, a scrap of nothing that we refuse to accept.”

In a message to the campus community, Eisgruber acknowledged meeting with the students.

“As the protest activity and rhetoric has intensified, I have heard from members of our community who say that they feel less welcome or secure on campus because they are encountering antisemitic language and behavior that should have no place at Princeton,” Esigruber said in his message.

“Some people believe we are tolerating too much protest on the campus and some that we are not tolerating enough. Finding a path forward will require that we respect all of these perspectives. That will not be easy. Never have I seen our campus more riven with passionate disagreements, disagreements that encompass the war in Gaza as well as issues about Princeton itself.”

Eisgruber said he hopes to find a resolution, but "cannot allow any group to circumvent those processes or exert special leverage."

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