Princeton heaps contempt on the U.S. Constitution

Excludes defenders from Constitution Day event

September 17 is Constitution Day in America. Every university that receives federal funds is required to host an event in honor of the occasion. The event must include "an educational program about the U.S. Constitution for its students."

Princeton University should need little encouragement to honor the Constitution. James Madison, a Princeton grad, had a major hand in crafting the document. He’s known as “the Father of the Constitution.” Madison and another Princeton alum of some distinction, Alexander Hamilton, helped secure ratification of the Constitution by writing most of the Federalist Papers.

At one time, Princeton did honor the Constitution in an event hosted its James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institution. Prominent conservative public intellectual Robert George runs that program.

However, in 2007, Princeton transferred responsibility for the Constitution Day event to the Program in American Studies, which was recently folded into the university’s new Effron Center for the Study of America. The James Madison program continued to participate as a cosponsor.

This year, the James Madison program expected to be invited to participate once again. I understand that it asked Effron for an invitation to do so, but never received a response.

Princeton proceeded to turn its commemoration of the Constitution into a thorough trashing of that document. Alexandra Orbuch, a sophomore at Princeton, reports:

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Southern California. . .described the Constitution as "a tool of geopolitical gaslighting"; political analyst Rich Benjamin. . .argued that "the fact and the dogma of the Constitution" have caused a "racial crisis and a democratic crisis"; and history professor Rosina Lozano. . .barely even addressed the Constitution, choosing to focus on how a lack of bilingual ballots caused the "disenfranchisement and mistreatment" of the Spanish-speaking community—including undocumented immigrants—in America for decades.

Naturally, the Republican Party drew the ire of the panelists:

According to Benjamin, the GOP aims to "disrupt the country for ideological ends" and Republicans hold "anti-democratic sentiments." Parreñas added that she "would not put it past Congress—if they [sic] became a Republican majority—to appease white nationalists, those who wish to go back to the time when it had been only whites. . .could be citizens of this country, and to repeal the citizenship clause of the First Amendment." 

The First Amendment does not contain a “citizenship clause.”

False information is a standard hazard when one invites a professor of gender and sexuality studies to discuss the Constitution. Maybe she was “gaslighting” the audience.

Had Professor George been on hand, he could have corrected false, absurd claims like those of Parreñas. And therein lies the main problem with Princeton’s event.

It’s okay to present a leftist critique of the Constitution on Constitution Day. But it’s a major disservice to exclude a dissenting mainstream perspective. By excluding Robert George’s group, the Effron Center turned Constitution Day at Princeton into a leftist, anti-American indoctrination session.

Why would the Effron Center host such a session? Probably because it holds America’s Constitution in low regard. And Princeton, having handed sole control over Constitution Day to Effron, likely holds a similar view.

At any rate, Princeton offered no defense of its trashing of the Constitution. A spokesman for the university declined to comment on it. 

The mainstream American left pretends to revere the Constitution. In fact, the liberals’ answer to the Federalist Society goes by the name “American Constitution Society.”

Is this truthful advertising? Liberals say they respect the Constitution but that it’s a “living document,” one that needs to keep up with the times. I’m sure some liberals believe what they’re saying, but how much respect can they truly have for the Constitution if they insist that its meaning must constantly be updated? The Founders envisaged constitutional updating by amendment, not ever-evolving judicial interpretation.

I’m also pretty sure many liberals have contempt for the Constitution and its “sexist, white supremacist” authors. They think of it not even as a flexible guidance document, but rather as a huge obstacle that needs to be overcome — even scuttled — in the name of progress and equity.

This sentiment was on open display at Princeton this year on Constitution Day. Call it truth in advertising.