One essay written by one graduate on a contentious contemporary issue and the whole place is evil. The tone of the essay indicates it was a rhetorical exercise in dissent from a popular opinion. The modern judgement that such a thing is now abhorrent, is exactly the point.
I think perhaps this criticism suffers from a lack of imagination. People that cannot understand another person’s ideas are quick to label them evil.
> Joseph Yannielli received his PhD from Yale and was the Perkins Postdoctoral Fellow in the Princeton Humanities Council. He is an expert on the history of slavery and abolition, with a special focus on America, West Africa, and the wider world during the nineteenth century. His other areas of interest include political and social movements, missionaries and religion, capitalism and globalization, and the United States in the world. At present, he is completing a book about the Mendi Mission and the role of Africa in the American abolition of slavery. He is the founding manager and lead developer of the Princeton & Slavery Project website and several other digital history projects.
There are four other individuals involved at an organizational level for this project, and over 50 other students, advisors, and organizations involved in creating it.
It is absolutely an official statement from the institution of Princeton University.
But, please, continue to offhandedly dismiss things you don't like as lacking imagination and assume that other people simply lack the comprehension to understand the grand ideas in this essay. It's just such a compelling position to put yourself into, not having to defend bad ideas at all, because hey, only stupid people could think they'd be bad.
I think perhaps this criticism suffers from a lack of imagination. People that cannot understand another person’s ideas are quick to label them evil.