Why some colleges are banning AI in the classroom — and why that's a good thing

President Christopher L. Eisgruber introduced transfer and first-year students to the University’s expansive commitment to academic freedom and free expression during his fifth annual Orientation session on the topic.  

Princeton’s austerity program is already well underway. The University calls it a transition “from growth to focus,” but it has meant 5–7 percent cuts to departmental budgets, more than 3 percent of staff positions disappearing through layoffs and unfilled vacancies, and increased employee contributions for benefits such as medical insurance. Fewer people and resources are left to support a recently expanding student body, and more reductions are coming.

In his February letter announcing this “focus,” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 emphasized Princeton’s financial strength, but pointed to lower expected long-term endowment returns, from 10.2 to 8.0 percent annually, as forcing the University’s response. 

In 1985, the 17th president of Princeton University William G. Bowen GS ’58 delivered an opening exercises address that described universities as standing “at a slight angle to the world.” He noted how it was, in some ways, a historical aberration that universities in the U.S. could maintain their dissent from authority, and broadcast and house unorthodox — even outrageous, or broadly offensive — ideas.

Bowen defended this independence from political control as enhancing the quality of universities’ teaching and research. So has current University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, who has posited the idea that “great benefit” comes from allowing universities to continue operating “at a slight angle to the world.”

The organization founded by Charlie Kirk is returning to the Utah campus where the conservative commentator was killed to hold a memorial on the first anniversary of his death.

Utah Valley University has also decided to shut down its public campus in Orem that day — Thursday, Sept. 10 — to “provide time and space time for reflection” for students, staff and faculty to use in the way that works best for them. No classes will be held, according to a message to the community. Some students have pushed back on the closure and the administration’s decision to “hand over our campus” to Turning Point USA for the Kirk memorial event.

The Trump administration is threatening to revoke the tax-exempt status of private nonprofit colleges that “engage in racial discrimination,” which it claims includes the adoption or enforcement of any admissions policies, scholarships or other programs intended to support Black, Hispanic or other minority students. It’s the latest effort in the administration’s ongoing push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion at American universities.

As many as 18,000 private schools—which includes K–12 and postsecondary institutions—could have their 501(c)(3) tax exemption revoked if they are found to “discriminat[e] on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational, admissions, scholarship, athletic, or other policies,” according to a draft of the proposed rule released Thursday. 

It’s been a month since the Department of Education issued a public letter to college presidents and boards, calling on them to answer questions about how they’re meeting the priorities of the Trump administration. Public-college systems in Florida and North Carolina have replied enthusiastically, but most institutions seem to be doing some version of waiting and seeing.

The sparse replies contrast with how college leaders reacted to a similar letter that the Education Department posted last year, the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” That document drew a number of relatively swift, high-profile rejections. This time, colleges have until the end of the year to respond to the letter, issued August 3 and titled “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards.”