The use of “justice” has fluctuated in waves, peaking in the 1930s, 1970s, and the early 2000s. The 1970s were a busy time for the library workers’ union and the food service workers’ union, populating many headlines in the pages of the Prince throughout this decade, with each group calling for just wages that would support their cost of living. Princeton’s food service union was formed in 1978 and over 90 food service workers held a strike on May 7, 1979, leaving only two food service facilities open on campus. The activism of the 2000s was dominated by the war in Iraq. ‘Prince’ journalists recorded the arrests of Aderemi Artis GS ’07, Scott Gilmore ’04, and Traci Schlesinger-Franks GS ’06, who sat in the middle of Nassau Street in protest of what many considered genocide in Iraq. Students continued their efforts on the streets of New York City as around 75 students traveled to an anti-war protest. “Justice” has been most used often in recent years, often surrounding climate justice. On April 23, Sunrise Princeton held a walkout for Earth Day. One of the co-sponsors was the Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of America who were “demanding justice for workers because worker justice is climate justice … [and] immigrant justice is climate justice.”

Similar to “apartheid”, “protest” was used relatively rarely over course of the history of the ‘Prince’ until the 1950s, peaking in the 70s and 80s as protests over South Africa dominated student activism. At the same time, however, women’s rights continued to be a strong point of contention throughout the 1980s. Despite the University’s transition to co-education nearly two decades earlier, the Women’s Center Task Force organized several marches throughout the decade in response to sexual assault/harassment incidents and the hostile environment towards women on campus. The marches were streamlined under the phrase “take back the night,” as organizers Janet Sarbanes ’89 and Elana Sigall ’88 stated, “If one of us has lost the right to walk safely in the night, we have all lost that right.”

Mention of demonstrations in the ‘Prince’ rose briefly in the 1930s with activism against the United States’ involvement in World War II then peaked significantly in the 1970s with student activism for divestment from South Africa. In early 1978, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Southern Africa picketed every weekday in front of Nassau Hall for the University’s divestment of its stock holdings in South Africa. The picket lasted over a month, garnering 600 people to a rally at Cannon Green on April 4 in memory of the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and his contribution towards the South African liberation movement. The use of the word has since been on the decline, reaching around 200 occurrences in the 2000s, equivalent to its rate before the 1930s.

Although almost never used in the ‘Prince’ before the 1960s, “activism” has seen a rapid and steady increase in its use since the Civil Rights Movement. Recent years have seen the highest use of the term. In 2020, amid the national Black Lives Matter movement, over 1,000 protesters gathered outside FitzRandolph Gate on June 2 to demand justice for Floyd’s death. Associate Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel Dr. Theresa Thames said to the ‘Prince’ in 2020, “In the onslaught of oppression against black communities from health disparities to mental health, redlining, and all the way to modern-day lynchings, it has to end.” In September 2020, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 announced new initiatives for diversifying University faculty and leadership and addressing systemic racism within and beyond the University, yet students looked for more transparency and clear timelines regarding change. “Activism” has emerged as the foremost word to describe Princeton’s intersection with broader societal issues.

The first spike in “referendum” occurred in the 1920s surrounding a nationwide push of 700 universities to vote on a Peace Treaty regarding U.S. involvement in the League of Nations. While use of the word peaked in the 1970s, referendums at Princeton continue to be a way in which students ensure their voices are heard by administrators and the public at large. In 1971, the students voted on multiple referendums surrounding ROTC, stipulating “that ROTC be non-credit, cover all its own expenses, and have no academic rank for its officers.” “Referendum” coverage continued in the 1980s during this time centered around the Cold War. The referendum regarding nuclear freeze — stopping the development of nuclear weapons in the United States — gained particular traction after the referendum failed in 1983 by only seven votes. When the referendum was voted again in October of the following academic year, it passed, exceeding the necessary percentage by almost 150 votes. Despite the referendum’s ultimate success and the movement’s popularity, one of the chief organizers of the referendum, Bernard Harcourt ’84, at the time commented on its efficacy, saying “Obviously the University isn’t going to endorse it. Obviously we’re going to have to keep on working.” Recent referendums have passed with varying levels of support. The Winter 2022 referendum to ​​expand gender-neutral residential restrooms passed with 58 percent of the vote, compared to 89 percent voting for the universal midterm grade reporting and optional faculty comments in Winter 2021. A 2022 referendum to boycott Caterpillar Inc. due to alleged Palestinian human rights violations passed with 52 percent of the vote, but the University took no action.

‘Prince’ coverage rarely contained the term “advocacy” until it rose in popularity in the 1980s. The word has been used in conjunction with raising awareness of environmental issues, mental health, and, most prevalently, HIV/AIDS. In 1991, ODUS, in conjunction with the AIDS Active Coalition for Education, sponsored a week-long program that welcomed people with AIDS to spend the day on campus. “We want to show people that (people with AIDS) ...are not decrepit creatures, but human beings,” Elise Harris ’92 said to the ‘Prince’ at the time. In November 2005, the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) organized a benefit rock concert at Colonial Club in addition to selling t-shirts and holding raffles at Frist Campus Center. Student activists traveled to Washington, D.C. for an AIDS rally earlier that year. Since then, “advocacy” has been increasing, with its most drastic increase in use occurring in the past ten years.

Campus discussions of apartheid remained absent until the late 1950s before rising to a peak in the mid-1980’s and falling off abruptly in the early 1990s with the system’s end in South Africa. For Princeton students, mentions of apartheid reached their highest incidence in 1985, when students and faculty protested for the University’s divestment from South Africa. On April 22, students camped out in sleeping bags on Cannon Green, and on April 24, faculty petitioned for divestment of $500 million in University investments from the apartheid regime. In response to University President William Bowen’s decision in May of 1985 not to divest, the Princeton Coalition for Divestment published an article in the ‘Prince’ breaking down and arguing against Bowen’s speech. On July 8, Bowen and 19 other college presidents signed a letter advocating for government sanctions. Recently, the usage of apartheid has been revived, with Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest among other student groups have called for the University to divest from companies tied to Israel’s “ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies.”

Discussions of sit-ins were essentially nonexistent until the late 1960s, and since then there have been several major sit-ins, such as the anti- ROTC Nassau Hall sit-in of 1972, the South African divestment movement in 1978, and the 1989 sit-in protesting the University’s allowance of discriminatory recruiting practices against minorities on campus. On April 14 and 15, 1978, students performed a sit-in at Nassau Hall in protest of the South African government’s apartheid policies. On May 10, 205 students involved in the sit-in were subjected to an almost five-hour hearing in Richardson Auditorium and each was given a disciplinary warning. As reported in the ‘Prince,’ the opening witness, George A. Riley ’79, explained that the People’s Front for the Liberation of Southern Africa took action “with the full recognition that the university might take recourse against us” and did so to “forcefully present the nature of Princeton’s ties to apartheid and create an atmosphere conducive to discussion and change.” Recently, a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” sit-in began on April 25 in McCosh courtyard and two graduate students were arrested after students began to erect tents, echoing the sit-ins of the past.

In a similar pattern to “apartheid,” the Prince did not significantly record the word “divest” until the late 1970s and 1980s as students protested for Princeton’s divestment from South Africa. In November 1968, the 92nd Daily Princetonian Editorial Board wrote that “We believe that this university, with all due deliberate speed, should divest itself of corporations which have substantial affiliates or subsidiaries in South Africa, or which lend large amounts of money to the South African government.” Yet campus discussion of apartheid and divestment from South Africa did not rise significantly until the late 1970s. In the period following the sharp peak in 1978, coverage of divestment dropped significantly throughout the 1980s, returning to the low levels of the early 1960s. Following the period of slow increase in the 1990s, “Divest” coverage has risen higher than ever before towards the early 2010s. Today, “divest” is often a term used surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict and the climate crisis, urging the University to divest its endowment from “companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies” and “divesting the roughly $700 million of its endowment the University still holds in privately-owned fossil fuel companies.”