Anthony (Van) Jones, who resigned as an environmental policy adviser to the Obama administration after coming under fire from conservatives for past statements and political activities, has been named as a visiting fellow at Princeton University for the coming academic year. A statement being released by the university today says that Mr. Jones will be a distinguished visiting fellow at both its Center for African American Studies and its Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, and that he will teach a course on race, ecology, and the environment during the spring 2011 semester. Mr. Jones, a 1993 graduate of Yale Law School and co-founder of three advocacy organizations, served as a special adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from March to September of 2009. He left the position after being attacked for publicly using a crude insult in reference to Republicans, signing a petition that questioned whether the Bush administration deliberately allowed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and having past connections to a radical Bay Area group with Marxist origins.
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11 Responses to Van Jones Named as Visiting Fellow at Princeton
jdm0007 - February 24, 2010 at 10:13 am
Wow, what a travesity for higher education. This man has no credentials or contribution to make to Princton or its students. Shame on you Princton for being so PC that you throw your good name overboard for someone as insignificant as Van Jones and his good friend Barack Obama.
tbdiscovery - February 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I try to defend higher education and the tactics of the extreme left on issues of higher education, simply because HE is my professional industry and I hope to rationalize some of the behavior and decisions. Yet, the politics makes it more difficult with each passing day.
coybean - February 24, 2010 at 2:14 pm
The article is woefully vague about Mr. Jones’ academic, civic and professional achievements, thus, I think the above comments about his lack of qualifications. I am being generous and assuming that fellow scholars would not allow political leanings to color their perception of Mr. Jones’ potential to contribute to academic discussion by assuming that there is just a lack of awareness of his resume. B.A. in communications and political science from the University of Tennessee at Martin J.D. Yale Law School.NGO Founder; Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Co-founder; ColorOfChange.orgproduced the “Social Equity Track” for the United Nations’ World Environment Day Founder; Green For All, coined “Green Jobs Campaign”Senior Fellow with the Center for American ProgressFellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.Statewide grassroots director for Arianna Huffington California Recall CampaignSpecial Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental QualityHe’s surely qualified to be considered for a VISITING fellow? Even at an esteemed establishment institution like Princeton. The threshold for such positions have been historically flexible.
11232247 - February 24, 2010 at 3:16 pm
This is a joke right?
chandrak - February 24, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Anthony (Van) Jones is not qualified to be a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University. He was appointed by President Obama as a special adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality because of his relationship and support for Obama’s Presidency. He will teach a course on race, ecology, and the environment. How is he qualified to do this assignment? Mr. Jones is a racist and a communist. Princeton University should have chosen a better person for this position.
catmama - February 24, 2010 at 6:34 pm
As an alumni parent I’m outraged that Princeton Universtiy would hire this man to teach anything at their school. If my child still attended the university I would insist that there be another alternative to having Mr. Jones teach my child. No one should be forced to listen to his communist ideas even though they want to take his chosen course. I can assure you no more of my hard earned money will be going to Princeton University. I hope they get a lot of negative response from their alumni in the form of lossing financial support.
11218946 - February 24, 2010 at 7:06 pm
WHO GAINS AS PRINCETON LOSES?
11179021 - February 24, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Hey! What would you expect from one of the Poison Ivy League schools? I wonder why Columbia, home of Cloward & Piven or the University of Chicago, home of Saul Alinsky, had not snatched this anarchist cop watcher off the street before now.
11232247 - February 24, 2010 at 11:00 pm
On the other hand, perhaps Ward Churchill was just not available.
calfrye - February 25, 2010 at 4:05 pm
coybean, I’m afraid your generosity was misplaced.
new_theologian - February 25, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I suppose coybean is entitled to a personal opinion, but so am I. I don’t find the resume coybean posted for Jones to be particularly impressive. Publications? Academic posts?As for the critics who focus on Jones’ Marxist philosophy, I agree that it is repugnant, but I do not agree that it disqualifies him for a university post–at least, not at a secular institution like Princeton. And I do not believe that Marxism should be banned content in any institution of higher education, even Catholic ones. That’s right, I said it, and I’m a theologian in the lines (I’m not saying of the rank, but in the lines) of Joseph Ratzinger. Marx was a brilliant and compelling thinker, even if he was ultimately wrong, and his ideas finally perverse. He should be studied, his perspective understood, his critiques taken to heart, and his valid insights used to guide the course to the correction of his theory. This is what Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) did with Marx, whose ideas he knew quite well.On the other hand, Jones holds some moral views about the expendability of individual persons, and the subordination of the human person to the social or even ecological whole that I think is finally intolerable. Of course, it is all consistent with Marxism, which I already said, should not be a per-se disqualifier. But the willingness to force sterilization and abortion under the right circumstances is where a person crosses the threshold into being rather dangerous.Of course, his lack of any real qualifications to warrant such an appointment would make it easy to say no to him without even having to get into all that confrontational ugliness, but Princeton chose another course and revealed their own true motives.