Anti-Israel referendum bulldozed at Princeton

When the dust settled following Princeton University’s controversial BDS-aligned Caterpillar Referendum, students were left with an anti-climactic result.

The Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) led the campaign to boycott the construction machine company Caterpillar for its affiliation with Israel.

After the undergraduate student body voted on the referendum, with 44% voting to pass, 40% voting to reject it, and 16% abstaining, controversy ensued over the results. 

While the Princeton Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Constitution stipulates that a referendum is passed if a majority of the votes are in the affirmative, not counting abstentions, the USG Chief Elections Manager Brian Li communicated to a leader of the opposition campaign Jared Stone that abstentions would count towards the vote count before backtracking on his comments three hours before the vote closed.

Four members of the USG Senate then filed an appeal contesting “the actions of Chief Elections Manager” Li, which Campus Reform was told by Stone had a major impact on the pro-Israel campaign as “that was an understanding throughout the entire campaign.”

After holding a special meeting, the USG released a statement announcing that the appeal was successful and will be upheld, and will therefore withhold making a statement to the university on behalf of the student body for or against the referendum, which Stone describes as “effectively nullification.” 

[RELATED: University ‘rejects’ students’ call to boycott Jewish campus organizations over Israel]

In upholding the appeal, the USG voted to pursue several “remedies” including the pursuit of an amendment to the USG constitution clarifying already-existing guidance on abstentions, the commitment to consider appointing a Deputy Chief Elections Manager and a Co-Chief Elections Manager, and to “conduct a comprehensive review of the USG Constitution and Elections Handbook and consider amendments by the end of Summer 2022.”

The leaders of both sides of the “Caterpillar Referendum” told Campus Reform that they are encouraged by the results of the campaign.

Jared Stone, who also serves as president of Tigers for Israel, pointed to the fact that 56% of Princeton undergraduate students did not vote in favor of the referendum after a narrowly-contested referendum also failed in 2015. 

“BDS is always an uphill battle on college campuses,” Stone said, stating that the movement “offers a misleading perspective and a sort of slanted outlook on the situation in the Middle East.” 

“And BDS is unfortunately something that we see to be quite successful in a variety of college campuses so I’m actually really pleased with the results (and) that we were able to get a strong majority of students not to support to the BDS referendum, and I’m hopeful that these efforts can be taken and used as a model to hopefully be replicated at other universities across the country,” he added.

[RELATED: ‘Don’t take sh*tty Zionist classes’ student group warns]

The president of the Princeton Committee on Palestine Eric Periman, who sponsored the referendum, said in a statement to Campus Reform that while he was enthused by the results, “It is disappointing to see the Undergraduate Student Government act in violation and contradiction of their constitution by not declaring a clear winner in this referendum election.”

“We intend to use the clear will of the undergraduate student body and the momentum generated by our campaign to continue to pressure the University administration to halt all usage of Caterpillar construction machinery,” Periman said.

As the referendum failed to pass due to Princeton’s USG upholding the appeal, Executive Director of the Academic Engagement Network Miriam Elman, who signed a letter imploring the university president to reject the referendum, called on university leaders once more to “denounce this misguided referendum and BDS as polarizing, divisive, inimical to civil dialogue and debate over contentious issues.”

Campus Reform reached out to Princeton University, the President of Princeton’s USG, as well as the USG Senate’s Director of Communications for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

Follow @PeterCordi on Twitter.