Daily Princetonian Satire Stirs Accusations of Racism

The Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper of Princeton University, each year publishes an issue filled with jokes, satire, and tongue-in-cheek jabs at a variety of prominent people and social topics. Although there’s bound to be someone every year who isn’t laughing, this year’s issue has actually caused some reader’s to accuse the newspaper’s staff of being racist.

The most outspoken critic of the issue is Jian Li, an 18-year-old Asian man who already had a personal bone to pick with the Ivy League school. Li filed a civil rights complaints against the university last summer Li, who scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT and almost perfect on the SATII, applied to nine of the most prestigious universities in the United States last year but was rejected by five of them—Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania.

In his complaint Li cited a study by two Princeton professors in 2005, which concluded that if consideration of race is removed from consideration of a student’s application, it would have little effect on white students, but it would result in Asian students filling nearly four out of every five places in classes that are currently filled by African-American or Hispanic students. Therefore, Li claims, highbrow universities such as Princeton have an unfair bias against Asian applicants in order to avoid accusations of not being diverse enough. The complaint by Li, who now attends Yale University, is still under investigation.

The joke issue of The Daily Princetonian includes a thinly veiled satirical reference to Li’s complaints in a column that carries the byline of Lian Ji. The article uses broken English and is peppered with racial stereotypes intended to skewer the university for turning down an Asian student. "Hi Princeton! Remember me?" the article begins. "I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400 SAT score. Ring Bells? Just in case, let me refresh your memories. I the super smart Asian. Princeton the super dumb college, not accept me."

Even though the article was printed along with a disclaimer telling readers that it was part of the joke issue, not a serious column, the disclaimer didn’t keep the critics away. Students and alumni alike cried foul. "I consider myself an easygoing person," said Andrew Liu, a 1991 graduate, in a letter to the editor. "But guys—this article doesn’t even try to use humor to hide the underlying hate."

Li also commented on his reaction to the article. "I think the article was extremely distasteful. Whoever decided to publish it showed an extreme lapse of judgment."

Chanakya Sethi, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, told reporters that he could see how the article might have made some people angry, but his hope is that the controversy will generate some dialogue on campus. "There are honest differences about what is humorous and what is not, and it was a regrettable mistake to think everyone would see the column as we do," he said.

Friday’s editions of The Daily Princetonian carried an article about the brouhaha, along with a commentary from the managing board of the newspaper that stood behind the intentions of the joke issue—which was, in fact, a joke—but soft-pedaled their stance by saying the members of the board "sincerely regret having upset some of our readers."

"Using hyperbole and an unbelievable string of stereotypes, we hoped to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous," the note said. "We embraced racist language in order to strangle it. At its worst, the column was a bad joke; at its best, it provoked serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity."