Vandiver (left) and his husband Velandia (right) courtesy of NYT.

The background: Vandiver met Velandia in 2006, and they legally married in Connecticut in August 2010. Currently, Vandiver is a residential grad student in Whitman, getting his PhD in politics. Velandia teaches salsa lessons in Whitman and also founded his own dance studio called HotSalsaHot.

The battle: According to DOMA, passed in 1996, the national government does not recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships. Because couples married in states with same-sex marriage laws do not receive any federal rights, Velandia could not obtain a green card via his spouse, unlike most heterosexual bi-national couples. When Velandia’s visa expired and his request for a new one was denied, the couple launched a campaign to stop his deportation that has gained national attention from CNN, The Advocate, and the New York Times.

More details after the jump. Also, check out the video of Josh and Henry’s wedding from their Facebook page, ”Save Our Marriage”:

The law: President Obama’s administration announced in February that it found DOMA unconstitutional and would not defend the law in court. However, the administration would still enforce the law until the Supreme Court comes to a decision on DOMA’s unconstitutionality.

Recently, Attorney General Holder stepped into suspend the deportation of Paul Wilson Dorman, one member of another bi-national same-sex couple from New Jersey. The Newark judge cited the Attorney General’s move as precedent for his decision to stop Velandia’s deportation.

The implications: The recent decision marks a reprieve for the couple until December, when Velandia’s deportation case will be revisited. In the meantime, the constitutionality of DOMA is being challenged in multiple court cases. The story of Vandiver and Velandia is not uncommon; according to a UCLA study, around 24,000 gay and lesbian couples in the United States include at least one foreign partner. Without federal rights, these couples face the threat of having their spouse deported.

Full disclosure — I am a staff worker in the LGBT Center. Therefore, I feel it’s necessary to disclose that my politics will invariably be connected to this blog post. However, my intention is mainly to inform, as this is a complex and developing story that requires understanding of LGBT issues.

To: “Lindy Li” lindyli@Princeton.EDU, dpuglies@princeton.edu, jmonagle@princeton.edu

Sent: Sun 24/04/11 12:28 PM

Subject: Fwd: Re: We need a secretary

Secretary Application: ************ 2012

Race: Caucasian

Gender: Male

Here are the questions that we would like you to answer:

1)  Why do you want to get involved in class government?

As a very outgoing and politically involved individual, I have found that my medium of choice, commenting on PrincetonFML and Daily Princetonian articles, can no longer give me the breadth of reach my visionary voice requires. Class government and its mass-email opportunities present a unique opportunity to let everyone know what witty commentary I have to say. Whether it is a simple yet timeless outpouring of “LOLZ” or the more sarcastic and biting “LAWLZ,” the people deserve to know my trifling opinions on the inconsequential news and gossip of Princeton life.

I hope through the extended mass emailing privileges of class government to instigate even more contention between class officers and the incompetent body known as the USG. Dominic Pugliese has done an excellent opening shot, but I believe the vitriol needs to go even further. Why stop at mere pronouncements of the USG’s ineptitude? Personal attacks on members have always proven effective – merely look at the current political climate! Outright lying is the norm of modern American politics – who cares if Yaroshefsky isn’t actually the love child of a midget and a capybara? If you tell it to the masses, some will believe, regardless of any “fact checking” or “correcting” that occurs after it has been said. You may even apologize for wrongfully accusing him of embezzling USG funds to invest in his chain of wee-man designer outfits, but the question will remain “Where did he get the money to design all of those tiny people suits?”

2)  Why are you interested in the secretarial position specifically? (”It’s the only open position in the senior class government” is a perfectly reasonable answer.)

I have always considered myself a natural candidate for the secretary position. While I firmly believe that occupations are very much gender oriented and that a secretary is as female a role as nurse or sandwich artisan, I understand that the modern progressive times call for new ways of looking at the world. With this in mind, I would propose referring to me instead as the “2012 Chief of Notetaking and Logistics.” Adding “Chief” to any position of course denotes the masculinity and power appropriate to the position. The name change would entail the creation of an underbody to serve said Chief of Notetaking and Logistics, specifically several aids and a woman to act as my secretary.

More original ideas, including a push to change Dean Dunne’s name to “Count Chocula,” after the jump!

3)  What ideas do you have for how class government can make our senior year unforgettable?

• Build a giant straw man effigy of Dean Malkiel on Poe Field. Place Dean Malkiel inside and burn said straw man to the ground in a sacrifice to the GPA Gods, so that we might be blessed with our pre-grade deflation GPAs.
• Reinstate the nude olympics. And by “nude” I mean naked and covered in fluffer nutter and by “olympics” I mean a tribalistic orgy of trance-inducing chanting charged with a shamanistic flow of hallucinogen-fueled energy, taking place in Tilghman’s office.
• Rename Nassau Hall to “The Official Residence of Sir Elton John” and have Benny and the Jets playing on repeat throughout the building
• Rename Dean Dunne to “Count Chocula”
• Abolish the USG and in its place have the students elect a series of intelligent animals – dolphins, monkeys, talking parrots, owls, etc, based on a series of panels and debates held in Frist.
• Hot tub study breaks, open to the entire Princeton Community
• Host a panel with Christopher Stalken and the P-Wanker titled “Masturbating Under your Window: An Open Q&A with Figures of Princeton Infamy sponsored by the Anscombe Society and LGBT Center”

Here are the questions that Nick Pugliese, our vice president, would like you to answer:

4)  The Class of 2012 has $100,000 remaining at the end of senior year and we can do whatever we want with it.  What would you do?

Buy $100,000 worth of puppies and set them loose throughout campus on Dean’s Date.

5)  At the last moment, our commencement speaker falls ill and can longer come. As luck would have it, both Will Ferrell and Janet Reno happen to be on campus. Who do you ask and why?*

I know what answer Nick wants, but I refuse to say Will Ferrell dressed as Janet Reno. Rather, I would ask Will Ferrell to host a game of Celebrity Jeopardy and invite Janet Reno, Cornel West, and Shirley Tilghman as Sean Connery to play as the contestants.

Read the news? Uhhh. I'll pencil that in someday, okay?

But where is the globally aware citizenship that all the admission brochures advertised? Where are the scholars in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations (aside from sharpening their get-recruited-for-I-banking skills in Robertson or Tower, that is)? A Prince column earlier this week (okay, we do read them too) called for more campus dialogue on current events. The Middle East is erupting. Japan is in shambles. Basically, 2011 thus far has reached a point where I expect a new revolution or disaster every time I refresh the NYT homepage.

I know, I know. We’re busy. We’re tired. We work really hard. Sometimes it is easier to just sit in Whitman dining hall, discussing the merits of different types of fruit-cereal-froyo combinations (banana, Smart Start, vanilla. Win!) instead of debating the pros and cons of intervention in Libya.

In the last week or so, though, I’ve become increasingly convinced that it’s actually easier than you think to break out of the Orange Bubble. Meaningful campus dialogue can exist! Even when it’s not awkwardly facilitated by Sustained Dialogue! Here, I give you five reasons why we can and should think outside the bubble:

1.) IT’S SO EASY.

It’s not just that we get to catch all kinds of big-shot guest speakers here every week (anyone catch Toni Morrison a few weeks ago? Or Mia Farrow talking about Sudan on Friday? Yeah, no big deal). Princeton is teeming with its own supply of experts, policy makers and diplomats on any topic you read about in the news. Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, for example, has been all over the media with her analysis of the situation in Libya. Woody Woo has an “Up to the Minute” series that hosts discussions on world events as they happen, and they held a panel on the nuclear crisis in Japan on Thursday. Most of our politics and policy professors are Wikipedia-ble (a true measure of their legitimacy), but all their baller achievements don’t stop them from posting their office hours up and being genuinely accessible to students. As in, you can walk into the former ambassador to Egypt and Israel’s office and ask for his personal opinion on Egypt’s constitutional future. Try it.

2.) It makes us appreciate our Princeton creds.

I had to write an article on Iraq for my journalism class last week, and decided to email the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on a whim that they might reply. They did, and I found myself Skyping with a spokesperson the next morning:

Him: You know, I actually once did a program at the Woodrow Wilson School myself.
Me: OH really?? You were in Woody Woo too?
Him: Yes, that’s why I was happy to see an email from Princeton. And I’m glad to give you background information for your article.
Me: Yeah that’s great! Maybe I’ll see you at Reunions!
Him: … Except I’m in Iraq.

Oh hey. Call me!

Oh. Right. Oops.

The point is that Princetonians are EVERYWHERE. Not only does this mean that we can creepily use Tigernet to track down important/rich/famous alum to ask for interviews/internship help/whatever (you can easily find David Petraeus’ phone number, for example), but most of them are also really happy to meet current students. Work those connections.

3.) These things are closer to us than we think.

I was struggling with a familiar dilemma last Wednesday afternoon: to stay in Small World and get some more work done, or to go hear a talk on something not required, but interesting for me and relevant to global affairs? Basically, should I or should I not compromise my institutionalized academic pursuits for the sake of wider self-education? At the very last second, I made the dash to McCosh 10 and spent an hour and a half listening to PLO activist Hanan Ashrawi speak on the “Dislocation of Palestine”… while discreetly trying to finish a report on China’s legislatures for my precept that night.

So yeah, I barely finished my assignment, which was kind of stressful. But the next morning, I was at the gym when CNN started reporting breaking news about bombings in Jerusalem and the associated tensions in the West Bank and Gaza. IT WAS SO RELEVANT, I got really excited and nearly fell off the treadmill.

4.) In fact, they often get really personal.

The most common argument for staying uninformed is that we’re just too busy, and these things are too far away. Dude, I have papers to write. Why should I worry about earthquakes in Denmark or rebels in Benghazi?

But we never know when the next huge world event will come into our personal lives. The times when I’ve seen Princetonians get most involved with current affairs are when they’re affected by them directly. Like when my friend sold samosas to Street-goers on Saturday nights, trying to raise money for flood relief in Pakistan — because of the huge need there in general, but also because that’s where her boyfriend was from.

Princeton kids working on relief for Japan.

Or when I thought nothing of a Japanese kid in my lab being absent one morning, until I saw him folding cranes in Frist later and found out that he’d been checking on friends and family after the tsunami. Or when we realized last year that one of our Whitman janitors was from Haiti, and had an initiative to bring clean water to Haitian villages that was devastated by the earthquake.

Moments like these remind us that what’s happening in the world can be (gasp) more important than our GPAs. But how great would it be if we didn’t need tragedies and disasters to remember that?

5.) FREE FOOD.

If nothing else, there’s one tried-and-true source of motivation: these talks are often followed by receptions. Which are usually catered by Olives. Mmm. Need I say more?
(Look here for weekly events that nourish both mind and stomach.)

He is The One.

Don’t scorch the skies yet — New Jersey Congressman (and former Assistant Director of Princeton’s Physics Lab) Rush Holt may just become this century’s Neo from the Matrix.

After IBM supercomputer Watson trounced all-time champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a game of man vs. machine Jeopardy! a few weeks ago, it looked as if the world was doomed to artificial intelligence supremacy. (Especially after Jennings revealed himself to be a traitorous robot sympathizer, writing “I for one welcome our new computer overlords” on his Final Jeopardy answer.)

pictured: Benedict Arnold (Schwarzenegger)

Holt was a former nuclear physicist and five-time champion on Jeopardy! over 30 years ago, making him a seasoned contender against the supercomputer.

According to the L.A. Times, Holt kicked Watson’s hard drive in categories like “Presidential Rhyme Time” and “Also a Laundry Detergent.” (Whitman College residents who watched the fateful Jennings v. Watson episode in February noticed the computer isn’t very good at wordplay. Are puns the last refuge of humanity?)

Despite Holt’s redeeming victory, I still don’t trust robotic technology. It’s not too long before a couple of THESE buggers get a mind of their own and begin attacking us like a swarm of killer bees.

If you play your cards right (and beat me to it), all this could be yours...

Over the next few days (November 11-13), the Liechtenstein Institute for Self-Determination of Princeton University will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary. We’ve come a long way, baby!

This unique institution is one of the few university organizations that can say that it was co-founded by a reigning monarch (…the Prince of Liechtenstein), and one of the even fewer university organizations that uses the phrase “geostrategic perspectives” in its mission statement.

According to the institute’s website, it concerns itself primarily with issues of self-determination, “especially pertaining to the state, self-governance, sovereignty, security, and boundaries with particular consideration of socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious issues involving state and non-state actors.”

This is particularly fitting for an institute founded by the rulers of a place so small that Snoop Dogg once tried to rent out the entire country for a video shoot.

Liechtenstein, referred to fondly by Wikipedia as Europe’s favorite doubly landlocked alpine microstate, is known for winter sports, tax scandals, and being the world’s largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units and false teeth.

The Liechtenstein Institute Colloquium’s scheduled events and highlights include panels on religion and diplomacy, self-determination and sovereignty, the state and the international system, and crisis diplomacy.

We will also be graced by the dreamy presence of the big man himself: His Serene Highness Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein (H.S.H.P.H.-A.I.I.o.L. for short).

No, he doesn’t have any eligible heirs apparent (believe me, I checked)

But if you’re interested in a little mercenary homewrecking, HSH is going to be giving a welcome speech in the University Chapel today at 4:30.

Dress to impress!

FO FREE!

Readers who have been checking out The Ink from its days as just a fledgling blog know that I never miss an opportunity to trash the USG (whether over ineffectual grade deflation measures, uncontested elections, the Becca Lee decision, election snafus – you get the picture).

So, as I stood in line outside the Garden Theater last Thursday around 11 p.m., waiting to see The Social Network FOR FREE, with FREE popcorn and a FREE soda, it occurred to me that credit ought to be given where credit is due. So here it is:

The free UFO movies at the Garden Theater are the best program the USG has ever enacted.

Now, this probably isn’t news to a lot of you — according to a Prince article, 2,700 students have gone to the free showings already this year, up from just 1,500 at this time last year. But it’s still worth going over why the initiative makes so much sense – lessons the student government can apply when thinking about other ways to spend school funds.

1. It’s Simple

Free movies. Every weekend night ( the college weekend includes Thursday, much as the baker’s dozen includes a 13th bagel). With snacks. First come, first serve. Easy, self-explanatory, and sells itself. Genius!

2. It’s Late

Princeton students stay up late. Really late, a lot of the time. And unless you’re going out to the Street, there aren’t all that many obvious late night choices.  USG events often happen when there are a ton of other things going on – the night owls of Princeton are the perfect audience for activities.

3. It’s a Really Good Deal

Movies are, like, expensive yo! Tickets are at least $10 most places on a weekend night, and snacks hit the wallet hard, too. This is one case where “free stuff” is actually pretty valuable (unlike, say, kettle corn or those drawstring bags, as popular as those seem to be). The USG spends $17,500 on the movies, and in my book, it’s money well spent.

So, in other words, spend money on things students want and will use, preferably late at night. Here’s the thing – I didn’t even get in to the movie last week. They ran out of tickets a few spots ahead of me in line. And I wasn’t mad – other people had obviously gotten the memo earlier in the semester, or last year. Next time, I’ll just show up earlier. An hour of my time for a free movie? When it would take me half that time anyways to drive to the nearest non-Garden theater to pay for a ticket? Sign me up. Great job, guys.

Something tells us the front cover of Fortune with a thoroughbred isn't exactly the best PR move

Running for office tends to bring all the unsavory bits to the surface, as Meg Whitman ‘78 probably knows by now. Her whole family seems to be fair game: gossip rags have had a field day mining all the exploits of Whitman and her sons, Griff Harsh ‘09 and Will Harsh ‘11. A few days ago, Gawker conveniently rolled it all into one, hyper-hyperlinked, mud-slinging blog post. They lead things off with Griff allegedly breaking some lady’s ankle, and not on the b-ball court:

According to a police report filed later that night, [a 22 year-old woman Valerie] Sanchez and her friends had mocked his fraternity and said “fuck you” and “fuck your fraternity” to him before Sanchez swiped Griff’s baseball cap off his head. The altercation escalated when both parties arrived at Blue Chalk Cafe. According to Valerie’s statement to the police, they were inside the bar when Griff “pushed” her “with two open hands on her chest and shoulder area.” She fell down and felt her right ankle “snap.” A nearby security guard witnessed the event and corroborated Valerie’s version of the events.

The aftermath? Whitman “posted Griff’s $25,000 bail with a cashier’s check and brought her son home,” and the charges were eventually dropped under vague circumstances.

And further stoking the Whitman media flame: maybe-governor Meg apparently roughed up one of her young eBay employees, as the New York Times reported on Monday:

Ms. [Young Mi] Kim later told at least one colleague that Ms. Whitman used an expletive and shoved her. According to one of the eBay employees knowledgeable about Ms. Whitman’s version of the incident, Ms. Whitman said that she had physically guided Ms. Kim out of the conference room.

Unlike Griff’s incident, there was no word as to her actual technique — did she also use the patented Whitman family double-open-hand shove? — but at least Ms. Kim escaped unscathed. Maybe Whitman was just getting in the right mindset, taking after her potential predecessor? Unanswered questions.

There was no roughhousing involved, but General David Petraeus *87 apparently fainted during a congressional hearing on Afghanistan strategy. Senator McCain aimed a question, then “stopped mid-sentence, his face frozen, as Petraeus slumped forward from his seat on to the witness table.” The general recovered quickly, chalked it up to dehydration and jet lag, and shrugged it off … pretty reasonable. (Happens to the best of us. Now that I think of it, happened to that one kid at that one bar mitzvah in 7th grade.)

Meanwhile, the media proceeded to grossly overreact and degenerate into some kind of weird speculative frenzy, best summed up by a genius Huffington Post video:

One of our Press Clubbers works with a DC intern who was present at the hearing and said it was a pretty low-key affair: he left, got some water, came back and apologized. Leave it to the media to blow things violently out of proportions!!!

And after the jump, graphic images of Congressman Jared Polis ‘96 bleeding out of his face. Proceed at your own risk:

what is this I don't even

I guess I neglected to mention that he’d be smiling. Kinda maniacally. While driving. If you are really confused right now, as you should be, well, I have no consolation except that Gawker is just as confused as we are. Apparently Polis tweeted this bloody mess sans context, adding only that “u should have seen the other guy!” One commenter drew an apt comparison to that one Andrew W.K. album.

And finally, on a completely non-medical note, we have some U.S. World Cup woes. Down 0-2 to Slovenia at the half, Bob Bradley ‘80 coached the team to a glorious comeback to tie it up, and then watched them ostensibly win it as the game wound down. That is, until ref Koman Coulibaly disallowed the goal for reasons as yet unknown, making a lot of people – some of them on the internet – very angry. Coulibaly was dropped from the rest of the Cup. Bradley thought it was “a good goal”; here’s his take on the game and the botched call:

Although this makes things a bit dicier in Group C, The Ink wishes him and our U.S. squad the best this coming week. And as for other Princetonians: keep your hands to yourself, stay hydrated, and when leaking bodily fluids on the road, try not to show the world.

(images via mikemoon.us and gawker.com)

President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan ‘81 to the Supreme Court, NBC’s Pete Williams is reporting tonight. And the White House will officially announce the selection at a 11 AM event tomorrow (Monday), according to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder.

Kagan, who previously served as the dean of Harvard Law, will be the third consecutive Princetonian to be picked for the nation’s high court, joining Justices Samuel Alito ‘72 and Sonia Sotomayor ‘76 on the bench.

Princeton will be the most represented college on the Supreme Court, assuming Kagan is confirmed. Stanford is next with two alumni (Kennedy and Breyer) on the Court. Other colleges represented are Harvard (Roberts), Georgetown (Scalia), Holy Cross (Thomas), and Cornell (Ginsburg). Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens graduated from the University of Chicago.

Kagan would be the third Jewish Supreme Court justice if confirmed, leaving exactly zero Protestants on the bench (Stevens is the only one left). She would also be the first Solicitor General to be appointed to the Court since Thurgood Marshall (for whom she clerked after graduating from Harvard Law). Marshall’s nickname for Kagan? Shorty! (She’s less than 5′3″.)

And Kagan is the second member from the Class of 1981 who has become a superstar in American politics. The other alumnus: Eliot Spitzer ‘81. (We will refrain from making any prostitute jokes.)

Oddly, it might be liberals who will be more upset with Kagan, who has supported a more expansive view of executive power than many on the Left find palatable. Still, expect Republicans to mount a large effort against Kagan by arguing that she’s “radical” and too gay rights-friendly. In particular, they cite Kagan’s criticism of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy during her time as dean of Harvard Law as particularly troublesome:

I believe that policy is profoundly wrong — both unwise and unjust…and I look forward to the day when all our students, regardless of sexual orientation, will be able to serve and defend this country in the armed services.

Last year, the Senate voted to confirm Kagan 61-31, including seven Republicans, when she was nominated Solicitor General, so chances are she’ll be hanging with our girl Sonia (and maybe our homeboy Sam? Probably not…) when the Supreme Court begins its new term in October.

See our previous posts on Kagan here, here, and here.

And you can find our past coverage of Justice Sotomayor and her time at Princeton here, here, and here.

It's always a party in the Supreme Court lobby

Earlier this week, we gave you some helpful advice on what not to do if you plan on becoming a Supreme Court justice. But what sorts of things should you do as a Princeton student if you want a lifetime appointment to the nation’s high court?

An exhaustive (i.e. cursory, superficial, dumb) examination of the Princeton careers of both Justice Sonia Sotomayor ‘76 and leading contender (and Solicitor General) Elena Kagan ‘81 reveals some startling similarities between the two. (We, um, conveniently ignored Justice Samuel Alito ‘72 because he was just too different.)

Here are some important steps to take before you walk out of FitzRandolph Gate:

• Be a woman
  • Although if you’re unmarried, like Kagan and Sotomayor are, people will just assume you’re lonely and/or lesbian.
  • But seriously, there are only like two men on President Obama’s list of candidates, so make sure you’re a woman.

• Be from New York City
  • Kagan’s from the Upper West Side and graduated from Hunter College High School.
  • Sotomayor grew up in the South Bronx and was valedictorian of Cardinal Spellman High School.

• Major in History
  • Thank God Kagan switched from Woody Woo to History after three weeks, because then our “analysis” would be even more irrelevant.

• Write a long senior thesis (ugh, toolish!)
  • Kagan: 156 pages
  • Sotomayor: 178 pages

• Find a white male professor to be your thesis adviser
  • Professor Sean Wilentz was Kagan’s thesis adviser.
  • Sotomayor’s adviser was former Princeton professor Peter Winn.

• Win cool prizes
  • Kagan was a Sachs Scholar (studying at Oxford with future-WWS dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ‘80).
  • Sotomayor was a Pyne Prize winner.

• Be anything other than Protestant (retiring Justice John Paul Stevens is the lone one left on the bench)
  • Kagan is Jewish
  • Sotomayor is Roman Catholic

• Smoke lots of cigarettes
  • Okay, so we don’t know for sure whether Kagan and Sotomayor smoked while they were at Princeton, but…
  • …while Kagan was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, a classmate recalled:

    I remember wandering around Gannett House late at night and opening the door to the room at the very top of the building, and you’d just see Elena all by herself with a cigarette and a pen, editing late into the night.

  • …and Sotomayor was crazy about cigarettes as a young New York City prosecutor, smoking a pack and a half a day (!)
    • not to mention her insane caffeine addiction…

Click here for Part 1.

(image source: supremecourt.gov/about/photo3.aspx)

The latest weapon in the fight against grade deflation (and some lovely shag carpeting)

Do you know what our first, and to date only line of defense is against the fire-breathing academic dragon of grade deflation?

A form letter. A piece of paper that earnestly explains why Princeton GPAs are lower than other GPAs, and encourages potential employers and graduate schools to visit the helpful online booklet Grading at Princeton: Frequently Asked Questions. The University mails out a letter with every transcript.

It may not be much, but it’s what we’ve got, and the USG hopes to propose a new draft of the letter to Dean Malkiel.

So what’s better in the new letter?

“The new letter is much shorter,” says Becca Lee, Academics Chair. Lee co-wrote the new draft with USG President Mike Yaroshefsky and 2012 Class Senator Julie Chang.

Brevity! Makes sense–who’s really going to read two pages about Princeton’s grading policy? What else are we telling the world?

“Its most important message is that grades at Princeton [are] earned differently than at other schools,” says Lee. “GPA does not necessarily provide a reliably standardized point of comparison.”

Amen! Now let’s hope someone (anyone) takes the time to read it.

Wanna see what the letter looks like? Full text of the new draft after the jump!

(This is the version of the letter as proposed to the USG Senate Sunday night.)

Colleagues:

In 2004, Princeton University enacted new institutional grading expectations to address locally the national problem of grade inflation. This policy applies common standards to all academic departments and programs: A-range grades shall comprise no more than 35 percent of grades earned in undergraduate courses and no more than 55 percent of grades for junior and senior independent work. I hope this letter allows you to better evaluate our students’ credentials by placing the academic records of Princeton students in context.

Endorsed and fully implemented by our faculty, this new grading policy reflects the commitment of the Princeton community to hold students to the highest academic standards. A-range grades at Princeton (A+, A, A-) signify a caliber of academic work that deserves special recognition. By making careful distinctions in evaluating student work, the faculty has restored educational content and meaning to the letter grades earned at Princeton.

By contrast, our closest peer institutions report that grades continue to rise, with A’s often representing more than 50 percent of grades awarded. Unchecked grade inflation devalues student achievement and undermines the reliability of grade point averages as a standard comparative metric.  At its worst, it may even discourage students from doing their best possible work.

The grading policy at Princeton is different. When evaluating the credentials of our students, I encourage you to consider their full course of study and other achievements. However, if your organization heavily weights GPA in its deliberations, please note that Princeton grades stand out against a national backdrop of grade inflation. For more detailed information about our grading policy, the booklet Grading At Princeton: Frequently Asked Questions can be found online at http://www.princeton.edu/odoc/faculty/grading/faq/.

If you have any questions, you can reach me at the above address or by e-mail at nweiss@princeton.edu. Thank you.