The College Fix

Says GOP students ‘make trans people feel uncomfortable’

A student Democrat leader at Princeton University said he would exclude conservative students from a prestigious eating club because they are “bigots” who “make trans people feel uncomfortable” in an interview Thursday in the student newspaper.

Nate Howard, president of the Princeton College Democrats, told The Daily Princetonian that there is a stigma against Republicans on the Ivy League campus, and he himself does not want them to become members of another club he belongs to, the Princeton Tower Club.

The exclusive eating club chooses members through a process called bicker, which typically includes competitions and interviews, and Howard said he advocates for excluding conservative students.

“I’m in Tower; when we do bicker, like, no, I don’t want bigots in my eating club,” Howard told the Princetonian. “And like, they may say, ‘oh, conservative views are marginalized,’ but like, which views, let’s unpack it, right? I don’t want people in my eating club that will make trans people feel uncomfortable.”

Howard also said he disagrees with the perception that conservative students at Ivy League schools “are special, distinct, and extremely intelligent and thoughtful.”

Negative attitudes toward conservatives extend beyond Princeton.

Often, conservative student leaders report being excluded or denied the resources that other clubs enjoy, and some have been targets of vandalism and threats. In 2015, for example, UNC-Chapel Hill did not invite any conservative clubs to a discussion with student organizations about the future of the university, The College Fix reported at the time.

And in 2022, the University of North Texas student government passed a resolution urging administrators to ban “transphobic” clubs from campus.

At Princeton, Evan Draim, a past president of the College Republicans, said attitudes like Howard’s are one of the biggest reasons why the club struggles to recruit new members.

“If identifying as a Republican is something that’s going to ostracize you from your social network, you’re not going to do it,” Draim, who graduated in 2016, told the Princetonian.

Current club president Jaden Stewart said they also struggle to “sell Republicanism as a brand,” because many students just assume Republicans are “racist” and “sexist.”

Notably, the Princetonian article, which was listed under its “News” category, repeatedly referred to the Republican Party as “radicalized.” One line mentioned “lies about the 2020 election,” and another described conservative host Candance Owens’s documentary “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM” as “falsehood-ridden.”

The article described Stewart, the current student Republican leader, as “cagey” and unwilling to answer questions, and noted that none of the other conservative students whom the Princetonian contacted responded to requests for comment.

MORE: Republicans, pro-lifers, libertarians shunned from university’s ‘diversity’ event

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