Princetonians for Free Speech

For the first time since 1893, Princeton students took all of their in-person midterm examinations with proctors present. Following the spring faculty vote that upended the University’s 133-year-old precedent set by the Honor Code, this semester’s examinations marked the official return to mandated proctoring.

The change to proctoring was implemented amid growing concerns over the advancement of generative AI and personal electronic devices and how they can make cheating more accessible and less obvious. Students and professors alike expressed their mixed opinions about this shift and its future implications.

But the higher ed politics conversation has come to a screeching halt. On the one hand, Trump seemingly lost his focus; on the other, no groups on the left have put forth an agenda on the issue for a theoretical Democratic-controlled Congress. 

The Brookings Institution, for example, neglected to even use the words “college” or “university” in its new series of essays examining the potential policy effects of a blue wave. This inattention is a serious misstep that could have negative implications for students and colleges in the years to come. Republicans used their power to discredit higher ed: Democrats cannot miss this opportunity to begin rebuilding it — and institutions like Princeton need to help.

Maryanne Wolf is a neuroscientist of reading. Princeton asked her to teach the Class of 2030 how to reckon with difficult language. Little could be more necessary at a moment of vanishing attention spans and visceral intolerance for language upsetting to its audience. Which makes it surprising that at Opening Exercises Wolf had a hard time finishing a sentence. She collapsed into her armchair, announced that she could not say “his name,” and spelled “T-R-U-M-P” to 1,300 first-years. Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, sitting across from her, smiled and said nothing.

Some criticism has come for Eisgruber, but who knows what his snap reaction really means. What’s shocking is that ten years after his first election victory, the name of the sitting president of the United States is treated as some kind of hex. The university that assigned incoming freshmen Wolf’s Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World — meant to foster courage in encountering challenging sentences — somehow failed once again to display a modicum of maturity when it counted. A decade on, is it possible that we’re still not ready to speak about the president without hyperventilation—or treating his name as a curse, or a trigger?

Tal Fortgang ’17 is a Legal Policy Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a regular contributor to PFS and a contributing writer at The Dispatch.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared President Donald Trump’s 2024 election “a turning point for higher education” during a speech at Vanderbilt University Wednesday, the fourth and final talk in her series entitled “The Next 250: American Education.”

“Violent riots erupted across campuses,” McMahon said, referring to the wave of pro-Palestinian student encampments that sprang up in the spring of 2024. But those protests, combined with dramatic declines in academic rigor, caught Americans’ attention, she said, and now, “a tide of reform is finally washing over our campuses—powered by some institutional leaders who have boldly acknowledged the need to rebuild public trust, restore sanity and revive a culture of excellence and accountability.”

Nearly a year into his tenure as Texas Tech’s chancellor, Brandon Creighton was still making the case that he was the right man for the job. As chair of the Senate Education Committee, Creighton spearheaded laws aimed at curbing what GOP leaders saw as liberal influence on campuses and making college degrees worth their cost — an overhaul his supporters say is unmatched by other states.

Now, from inside one of the university systems he once regulated, Creighton is going further than the laws he wrote require, positioning Texas Tech as a model for other universities. One of Creighton’s first acts as chancellor was to require faculty across Texas Tech’s five campuses to seek approval before teaching lessons involving gender identity, sexual orientation, or certain ideas about race and sex.

A public university can’t silence the board members elected to run it. But that’s exactly what a majority of Michigan State University’s board of trustees has done by requiring its members to promise not to publicly criticize university governance. When trustee Michael Balow refused to give up his First Amendment rights, the board imposed severe punishments that are preventing him from effectively carrying out his duties.

Today, Balow and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional restrictions the board’s revised ethics code imposed on Balow.