A tipster of unimpeachable authority ("I had class with him for 3 hours a week for a term last year") passes this on:

Francisco "The Orangina Bandit" Nava is still on campus, oddly enough. He was leaving Firestone today at around 2:30. So I guess even people who beat themselves up and threaten professors get to finish their Dean's Date work.

...it raises an important question: to what lengths does one have to go to be declared 'persona non grata' (an official term used by P-safe)? I mean, he threatened peers and a professor and demonstrated himself to be mentally unstable. Is that the type of person we need on campus?

At least Nava only stabbed himself and not a townie for making fun of him (looking at you, Harvard).

UPDATE: Spotted in Frist as well. Keep these sketchy reports coming, people. This is going to be just like Gossip Girl...but for right-wing nutjobs.

(Note: IvyGate will return to a normal posting schedule on Jan. 16) 

Sherif Girgis (P '08) is the former President of the Anscombe Society, a Rhodes Scholar, and a notorious Mensch to boot. He has provided us with a statement on behalf of the Anscombe Society regarding the events of the past few days. Here we were hoping for a streetfight, and Girgis gives us this eloquent, civil stuff.

Girgis absolves the University completely of all charges that they acted improperly in the handling of the affair. With respect to Nava's shenanigans, he breaks out the ultimate Anscombe diss, calling them, "distinctly unchaste." He also details the scrupulous and responsible manner in which the officers of the Anscombe Society investigated the possibility that this could be a hoax.

Some representative excerpts:

Some outside the University criticized the administration for what they perceived to be an anemic response or politically motivated indifference, but this is grossly unfair. From the time of the e-mailed death threats onward, Princeton's administrators and Public Safety officers have acted with impeccable competence and prudence.

From its inception, the Anscombe Society has prided itself on valuing reason over rhetoric, dialectic over polemic, and civility over belligerence. Needless to say, the twisted utilitarian calculus by which supposedly noble ends would justify deception, self-mutilation (Francisco confirmed that he acted alone at every step) and other manifestly evil means could not be more at odds with the principles that underlie our moral convictions or the unswerving commitment to truth that guides our approach.

I should end with a word about Francisco, whom I saw, perhaps for the last time, last night. I cannot, of course, speak for the entire campus community that he dragged through an unholy triduum of sorrow, then fear, and then confused anger. Nor is this the place to wonder idly about motives, or what punishment Francisco will incur. For my part and on behalf of the Society, I wish only to express our hope that he will find healing and forgiveness.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the whole ordeal, let it be that the word "triduum" -- which I had to look up -- means, "a period of three days of prayer usually preceding a Roman Catholic feast." And folks, that's no hoax.

After the jump -- Sherif Girgis's statement in full:

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Poor Princeton conservatives! Looks like the leaders of the Anscombe Society, Princeton's abstinence group, have a bit of apologizing to do to their liberal peers (as do some jerks in the national media). Let's stroll down memory lane and see if we can recall some of their finer moments as they defended the Talented Mr. Nava:

Professor Robert George on receiving an email threat: "If I were betting, I'd bet next month's salary that ... this is someone who stupidly thinks that no one is entitled to disagree with him, and if they do, that they'll be intimidated into silence by threatening."

Okay, Robbie. Will you be making that check out to NARAL or Emily's List?

Anscombe VP Jonathan Hwang:

This is the worst form of trying to silence opposing views: intimidation and fear.  If they were to stop issuing threats and actually come to the table with rational arguments or any intent for civil discourse, we'll be ready and waiting."

Who are "they," Jonathan?  Liberals who simply can't argue things rationally and beat the crap out of people instead? I mean, has that ever actually happened?

After the jump: more outrageous outrage!

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Some reasons L'Affaire Anscombe seemed fishy from the start:

• Nava claimed to have received a threat that read: "ONE MORE ARTICLE AND YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY." Has anyone ever gotten something like this? It's straight out of a D movie, and the sort of thing only an op/ed writer would dream up. Because really, nobody but you, your roommate, and your mom are reading those Prince columns.

• This quote: "For several days I lived in fear of saying, writing or even thinking anything controversial in class or informally among my friends." Here Nava implies that some violent gay mafia is in cahoots with the thought police. Hello, psychosis.

• The email threats came from a computer in Firestone library, where Nava was placed at the time. Furthermore, there were two threats: the second one followed after the first one was relegated to the recipients' spam folder. How would a mythical violent "sexual liberationist" know that the first email had been rejected unless he had sent it to himself?

• No self-respecting thug would use an Orangina bottle in a streetfight. Broken bottles are for barfights, and even then, it's gotta be 6% alcohol at least.

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The jig is up. Francisco Nava (P' 08), the student who allegedly received a series of emailed threats before becoming the victim of a violent assault, has come clean -- he faked it, the bizarrely  personal threats ("YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE WRONG CAUSE"), the prefab narrative of conservative martyrdom, the perfectly-timed assault, everthing.

Let me be honest, EVERYONE SAW THIS COMING. Although it would be pointless now to post a list of problems with Nava's account, it was a long list and it was a pretty good list. Stuff like: why did the threats begin merely after Nava spoke up in class and precept? Was he being stalked by a classmate? When the first round of threatening emails was intercepted by the Princeton spam filter, how did the stalker figure this out, as he must have in order to send a second round?

Why is the low-level officer who wrote a witless op/ed on condoms the target and not, you know, the outspoken Rhodes Scholar and former President of the Anscombe Society? How would the assailant have a car immediately ready to follow Nava to any destination? But the most damning piece of evidence was this: as a student at Groton, Nava wrote "Die Faggots!" on a wall and cried wolf. I mean, c'mon...

From the Prince:

     Francisco Nava '09 has admitted to fabricating an alleged assault on him that he said occurred Friday evening and also to sending threatening emails to himself, other members of the Anscombe Society and prominent conservative politics professor Robert George, Princeton Township Police said today.

    "He fabricated the story," Det. Sgt. Ernie Silagyi said.

Go crazy right now.

Here is an embarassment of links from the Prince, the New York Sun, the Tory blog, and the First Things blog.

(FOR TOMORROW: Did Nava inflict his wounds himself or pay someone to inflict them? Are there other conspirators?) 

Last Friday Francisco Nava (P'09), a prominent member of anti-modernity-club the Anscombe Society, was taken into an alley and beaten senseless, the culmination of a series of threatening letters which began in mid-October. Only a day before Brandon McGinley (P' 10) had this to say about the letters in a Prince op/ed:

These tactics are part of a pattern designed to silence members of our community who speak out against the hookup culture and sexual liberationist ideology.

Take that, self-righteous hunger-strikers. Strangely, the menacing letters started not after Nava's infamous condom-condemnation, "Princeton's Latex Lies," but instead, according to McGinley, after he "spoke up in class and precept" on Anscombe-y topics. The first message ominously informed Nava via his Frist mailbox, "YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE WRONG CAUSE."

Soon they came to do more than inform, however. Two days ago we learned that Nava, en route to a house in Princeton Township of a local student he tutors, was dragged into an alley and attacked by two assailants.

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