Since 2020: campus and national free speech coverage, plus original commentary, to keep alumni in the know.
Why some colleges are banning AI in the classroom — and why that's a good thing 
The decision by the American Anthropological Association to expel a panel (“Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby”) from its 2023 annual meeting — on the manifestly false grounds that the panelists’ belief in a biological sex binary “contradicts … settled science” — remains an open wound disfiguring the face of the discipline.
So it is no surprise that the Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich, in his critique of the state of anthropology (released last week, it is the fifth field-specific supplement to the Vanderbilt/WashU “Report on the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences”) spends several pages on the controversy. Why, he wonders, did the Princeton anthropologist Carolyn Rouse, the AAA’s current president, tell the Chronicle that, if you are an anthropologist who considers biological sex to be binary, perhaps “you want to kill babies” born with atypical sex chromosomes?
For Zach Ducorsky ’26, spending time at the pro-Palestinian encampment in the spring of 2024 was an important way to show solidarity with the movement as a Jewish student at Princeton.
“A lot of good things came of the encampment … good interactions, good conversations, good arguments as well,” says Ducorsky, who adds that he did not participate in protests but wanted to be present to challenge the perception that Jewish students felt uncomfortable on college campuses as activism surrounding the Israel-Hamas war reached a peak at Princeton and across the nation.
Last weekend, I joined a group of Princeton, Columbia, and NYU students in a “youth dialogue” at the United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations, which houses the country’s ambassador and his team. I traveled to New York expecting a chance to converse across a cultural divide and ask probing questions about the UAE’s subpar record on disinformation and its ongoing commitment to the “Board of Peace.”
But I found myself disappointed. The event was light on the dialogue; despite the UAE’s press release, there was no time allotted for students to ask questions, and the UAE leaders offered few remarks. Instead, the leaders were apparently focused on directing their media team to capture the best photographs and angles for future publicity.
Last week, Steven Crowder debated Harvard Law School professor Randall L. Kennedy. The event drew attention for obvious reasons: Kennedy is one of Harvard’s most prominent scholars, while Crowder is one of the country’s most recognizable conservative commentators.
Amid longstanding concerns about a lack of ideological diversity and self-censorship when it comes to campus discourse, this debate was a step in the right direction for free speech. Regardless of one’s views on the issues, it deserves our praise, celebration, and most importantly, our emulation.
During this era of growing censorship on campus and administrative concern about the public reputation of universities, student newspapers are an essential independent voice. The national outrage over Cornell University’s mishandling of an alleged gang rape on campus has been led by The Cornell Daily Sun’s important coverage of the case. Editor in Chief Sophia Dasser told The New York Times, “The office that you sit in is obviously off campus, and that’s for a reason.”
But the Daily Sun’s total financial and building independence from the university makes it almost a unicorn among the declining number of campus newspapers, many of which struggle to remain in print. Financial independence is a luxury few campus papers can afford. That makes it more important than ever for university policies and practices to protect freedom of the press.
Following up on last year’s roundup of convocation speeches and welcome addresses, we took another look at what campus leaders are saying to their communities at the start of the 2026-2027 academic year. Across a non-exhaustive set of speeches at influential universities, several themes stood out. Like last year, civil discourse and constructive disagreement appear to be top of mind for many university leaders, alongside curiosity, uncertainty, and the growing presence of artificial intelligence.
