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.

HxA has long argued that ideological conformity within the academy suppresses worthy lines of inquiry. Similar concerns have been raised by the much-discussed Vanderbilt/Washington University Report and the Yale Report, both of which identify ideological conformity as a threat to open inquiry. But identifying the specific topics, questions, and perspectives that have been stifled is a challenging task, requiring disciplinary expertise and an intimate understanding of how each field operates.

What did HxA members tell us? Broadly speaking, topics relating to race, sex, religion, and politics were all identified as unfairly neglected within respondents’ disciplines.

The Department of Defense last week said the 30 institutions it ordered to audit their partnerships with foreign entities of concern have “fully mitigated” those partnerships. 

On Monday, Oct. 19, the Pentagon said the audits resulted in more than 80 “termination-related” actions across the 30 universities with institutions on the Section 1286 list of foreign entities of concern, “as well as precautionary terminations involving entities not specifically identified on the list.”

Feeling comfortable sharing your opinions is one thing. Allowing others to express opinions you oppose is another. Our new survey of 1,999 students at 439 colleges and universities finds that three-quarters of students are at least somewhat comfortable sharing their opinions on controversial or sensitive topics in class.  That sounds encouraging, but it doesn't fully capture openness to different points of view.

Of students who say they are comfortable sharing their opinions, 44 percent say they feel comfortable because their views align with most other students and professors.  Moreover, 76 percent of students who are not comfortable sharing their opinions say they worry others would not consider their views acceptable.