Chaos and raw hatred erupted at Princeton University this week as anti-Israel protesters took over a campus lecture by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett—hurling vile slurs at Jewish students and pulling a fire alarm to shut the event down.
Danielle Shapiro, a Jewish senior at Princeton, says she was left “shocked to her core” by what she calls open antisemitism—allegedly committed by fellow students in broad daylight at one of America’s most elite universities.
“They called me an ‘inbred swine’ and told me to ‘go back to Europe,’” Shapiro told Fox & Friends, visibly shaken. “This wasn’t a protest. It was a hate mob.”
Shapiro was among dozens of students attending the event Wednesday evening when it quickly spiraled into chaos. Around 200 demonstrators assembled outside the venue, pounding drums and shouting into megaphones, according to eyewitnesses. But the situation worsened when over two dozen students inside the auditorium stood up mid-speech and began shouting obscenities at Bennett.
Within 20 minutes, a fire alarm was yanked, forcing a full evacuation.
“When we walked outside, we were surrounded,” Shapiro said. “People had microphones, they were screaming. And I was singled out for being Jewish. That’s not free speech. That’s hate.”
The incident comes amid a nationwide surge in antisemitic incidents at Ivy League schools—many of which are now under scrutiny by the Trump administration. Just last week, the administration suspended over $1 billion in federal research grants to Cornell, Northwestern, and yes—Princeton—pending civil rights investigations into campus antisemitism.
In a statement, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber admitted he was “appalled” by the reports of antisemitic abuse and confirmed that the university would be launching an internal investigation. But students like Shapiro say that’s too little, too late.
“There was no ID check. No bag checks. Nothing. Anyone could’ve walked in,” she said. “This wasn’t just a protest gone wrong. It was an administrative failure from the top down.”
Shapiro is now demanding real consequences. In a blistering op-ed for The Free Press, she called for disciplinary action against the agitators, a ban on masks at protests, and the suspension of Princeton’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
“That group has violated university rules repeatedly,” Shapiro wrote. “If Princeton wants to protect Jewish students, it needs to act. Not talk.”
Her demands echo those already enacted at Columbia University, where a mask ban has been introduced after violent anti-Israel demonstrations flooded the campus.
As tensions simmer, pro-Israel and Jewish students nationwide are growing increasingly concerned that their safety—and freedom of speech—is under siege.
“If you had told me two years ago this would be Princeton’s environment, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Shapiro said. “The fact that we’re now saying ‘it’s not as bad as Columbia’ isn’t a win. It’s a national disgrace.”
With Jewish students being harassed, shouted down, and called racial slurs—many are asking: how far will America’s top schools let this go?
And with the Trump administration cutting funds and sharpening its focus, the message to universities is clear: clean it up—or pay the price.
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What a demonstration of complete ignorance on the part of the protestors. Immediate expulsion of the vile demonstrators should be called for; this is not free speech; this is from the gut dangerous hatred.
The one big problem with having rules is, if they aren’t enforced, they are worthless. If it is true that the Princeton chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine “has violated university rules repeatedly,” the students actually carrying out the violations should punished accordingly. Unfortunately, the only thing the university has actually promised is that they will look into the matter.