I'm a junior at a very progressive northwestern liberal arts college with research interests in public law and political theory. I told one of my professors that I was thinking about Princeton and she said there's no way she would write me a letter of rec because she doesn't want me to be even implicitly associated with the National Organization for Marriage (ironic) and Robert George's agenda. (I'm also trans). She says she's doing me a favor. Is George still influential in the department? Can I pretty much avoid him if I want to? And is there a supportive community for lgbtq students at Princeton? I hear it's really conservative.
LGBT-friendly at Princeton? Even with NOM advocate there?
(37 posts) (2 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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George is a joke at Princeton. It's very different than Mansfield at Harvard, who still commands respect and influence. George is widely acknowledged to be an embarrassment, such that wingnuts who do want to work with him would be well advised to lie about that on their applications.
Posted 1 year ago # -
no, I think it's fair to assume the preferences of one person dominate those of the entire university.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"I'm also trans"
In the context of your comment, OP, it's entirely unclear what "also" is referring to. Is your anti-NOM professor trans? Or are you trans in addition to being progressive?
Please, if you're going to go to graduate school, take steps to learn to write clearly. The domination of the quants has been largely good for our profession, I think, but one drawback is that more and more political scientists can get away with being terrible writers. This appalling trend just needs to stop.
Posted 1 year ago # -
You're trying to be sarcastic, but maybe it's unwarranted. Princeton is socially conservative even without a catalyst on the faculty. One example:
Posted 1 year ago # -
Robbie is a joke here. Nobody takes him seriously.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^ Anscombe was a serious intellectual who happened to also be a wingnut. George is a serious wingnut who happens to be employed as a college professor.
Posted 1 year ago # -
There's a rumor that circulates around Princeton that a number of old guard types pushed hard for George to get tenure because they wanted to preserve WASP dominance by providing a living, breathing warning of what happens when we let the lower classes in (George is the son of coal miners, first generation college student, etc). PRobably BS, but if there's one place it could be true, Princeton is that place.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^OP--The "trans" thing is likely a phase. You'll probably grow out of it when you realize that nobody will hire you cause they think its weird. Trans aint a protected category for employment at many unis.
Posted 1 year ago # -
wow, people who think differently than you at a university SHOCKING---run, RUN fast.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Go West, Young Tran
Posted 1 year ago # -
George is a non-entity at PU
he is the token conservativethe vast majority of the faculty in the dept is liberal like everywhere in academia
u can work with Steve Macedo, libertarian, gay, amazing guy great person and scholar
Posted 1 year ago # -
a) you won't get in
b) you won't get a job in PT even if you do get in
c) run for the hillsPosted 1 year ago # -
I'm conservative...academia is not so much so! Can I get a doctorate while avoiding these "troubling" people? (I'm straight)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Most elite university's have a token hack who tarnishes an otherwise good name (e.g. George at Princeton, Sabato at Virginia, Swain at Vanderbilt, formerly Princeton). They rarely matter.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^Most people at elite universities also know how to spell.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^Or, they have better things to do than proofread their flame posts on message board. Simple minded pedantic dick.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^ironic
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^intentional.
Posted 1 year ago # -
In all seriousness, Robbie George pretty much runs his own shop at Princeton, which is almost entirely separate from the Politics department as a whole. He controls the James Madison program, which brings in a combination of serious scholars who happen to be conservative and serious hacks who pretend to be scholars. Every year one or two grad students get admitted more or less to work with him - they more or less disappear into his little world once they're done taking classes. You can avoid Robbie if you want to, and he has no influence over the rest of the department.
If you were planning on doing public law then things would be a little different. There are few enough public law professors that almost all public law grad students end up taking a class with him. At the very least, you'd end up precepting (TAing) for his Con Law class. It is worth noting that that class is popular among liberal and conservative undergrads - I have no personal experience with the class but he seems to keep his more controversial politics out of it.
In general, Princeton is a bit more conservative than your average R1 university, and in particular the undergrad class leans more to the right at other ivies. My impression (not being LGBT) is that there's much less of a LGBT community than at schools located in bigger cities. But once you're done with classes you can pretty easily move to NYC or Philly. There are certainly a lot of reasons not to want to move to a suburban New Jersey for grad school, but I don't think that Robbie George is one of them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Another problem with Princeton is the lack of robust black cultural experiences.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^ Probably the most useful and accurate post so far in this thread.
Being LGB is accepted at Princeton, but it's not exactly a warm welcome or celebration. By coincidence, Princeton's alum magazine just posted about a memoir by a Princeton alum (undergrad) who is trans, and is a senior prof at an Orthodox Jewish university: http://blogs.princeton.edu/paw/2012/04/ladin_00_shares.html May have some writing on LGBT life in Princeton.
Posted 1 year ago # -
she said there's no way she would write me a letter of rec because she doesn't want me to be even implicitly associated with the National Organization for Marriage (ironic) and Robert George's agenda.
Sorry, is this serious? She is suggesting she won't write you a letter because she doesn't like some academic at the place you want to go? Pretty unprofessional tbh. Find a better professor.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So where do we think the OP is at? Whitman? Reed has decent scholars, by and large, and I can't imagine this there. Or perhaps some nth rate LAC no one's heard of.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Seriously, this is silly.
1. Your advisor is doing you a major disservice. Find a better advisor, now.
2. Why don't you e-mail some current grad students at Princeton? People who want to do public law at Princeton work with Keith Whittington and Paul Frymer. Robbie doesn't really work with grad students anymore. That's not even relevant, anyhow.
3. Princeton is a huge department. No one person is all that important. Your advisor has a small-liberal arts college perspective on the way things work. Totally out-of-touch.
4. I never worked with Robbie in any way and do not share ny of his political views. However, when I was a graduate student there, I found him to be very friendly, congenial guy who everyone respected. He seemed most respected by those students who you'd most expect to dislike him - (LGBT, liberal, racial minority) students.
Very seriously, if you have an advisor who's telling you not to go to Princeton because of Robbie, that advisor is guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Former Princeton Grad Student is entirely on the mark.
What she/he didn't add is that RPG doesn't really have much time even for people who share his point of view when they come into the program (unless they're hard core, they eventually assimilate into the rest of the program and work with other people). He brings in grad students from other programs to write his NOM stuff (see the co-authors on his recent law review articles). He doesn't spend much time advising or teaching and he's rarely at department events. I never even seen him show up at his student's research presentations. Leaving aside RPG, there are some really great public law scholars who do take teaching and advising very seriously at Princeton - Frymer, Whittington on the qual side. Many of the theory profs (Macedo was already mentioned) have interests in PL - he also fits the serious scholar who's willing to work with anyone bill. So don't sweat it. It's weird that your prof wouldn't write you a letter of rec because of one prof that runs his own center. Almost proves the case that conservative academics are always making, that they're persecuted based on their beliefs and not their scholarly standards.
I know very little about LGBT life at Princeton, but I had colleagues in the program who were out and happy there (one of them who might qualify as a Log Cabin Republican).
I didn't know Mansfield was still influential at Harvard.
So where else are you thinking of applying? Have you taken the GRE yet? Thought about your personal statement and what paper you might fix up for a writing sample? Those are the things you should be worrying about! Good luck!
Posted 1 year ago # -
I am also a former grad student from PU.
The OP's question is a good one.
the answer is complex.as the other PU grad said, there aren't that many Con law people in the dept, besides Whittington. So you probably would have to have some contact with Robbie. I dont doubt that. It is a large dept, but not so much in Public law.
that being said, he is a nice guy.
he doesn't harass people over his ideas. But he might say something like not being straight is against nature, etc. I heard him say stuff like that in class.but even then, he doesn't really have much power in the dept.
so you can work with Whittington and Macedo and avoid Robbie.and yea, move to NYC or Philly after coursework if u can afford it.
u can easily go to NYC every weekend anyway.central NJ is great; PU is awesome, but its not perfect.
still probly better than the alternatives.Posted 1 year ago # -
OP: I know nothing about Princeton's climate or the person being discussed, but your adviser is treating you like a child. So, I suppose that you are already in a hostile environment. My suggestion is to walk in to your adviser's office, tell him or her to **** off; that you are quite capable of handling yourself around people who aren't very nice, open minded or, as in the present case, are paternalistic. An adviser's job is to give advice: not make decisions for the advisee.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Just some advice: don't do political theory. For your sake, as well as ours.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^ George gussies it up a bit, but his arguments don't have much more content than this comment.
Posted 1 year ago #