The Next Campus Battle after Free Speech: Viewpoint Diversity at America’s Elite Universities

The Princeton chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) met Monday afternoon for a discussion surrounding academic freedom and the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education. 

Fewer than 30 faculty members attended the meeting, compared to the over 50 members present at the chapter’s inaugural meeting. Faculty members reformed the Princeton chapter of the AAUP last March amid attacks on higher education from the Trump administration. Since then, they have convened monthly to discuss updates and to identify threats to higher education.

Four years ago, a user on a subreddit for Princeton asked, “What are some easy but interesting distribution requirement fillers for LA, SA, EM, EC? I’m basically asking for the humanities side of ‘rocks for jocks.’” This sentiment remains widespread at Princeton. During course selection periods, I often encounter inquiries on apps like Reddit or Fizz about easy classes to fulfill Princeton’s distribution requirements.

It’s time we say the quiet part out loud: many Princeton students are gaming the system. Rather than exploring the foundations and methodologies of a broad range of disciplines, they’re engineering the narrowest possible encounters with classes outside of their comfort zone and interests.

Every so often, the complexities of the world break through the orange bubble that is Princeton University. There are occasional reminders of the world outside, like the pro-Ukraine flag-waving event outside FitzRandolph Gate, reminding us that a major conflict in Europe is still ongoing four years later. Even as a veteran, it still feels like something happening in a remote place.  It was only when I attended the European Cultural Studies (ECS) Faber Colloquium, a requirement for the European Studies minor I am pursuing, that I reflected on Europe’s significance and the debt Princeton as an institution owes to Europe, from its architecture to its precept system. 

Sian L. Beilock seems to be everywhere. You’ll find Dartmouth College’s president in the pages of The Atlantic, sharing her plan for “Saving the Idea of the University.” And in The Wall Street Journal, asking whether a four-year degree is worth it.

And it’s not just that she’s seizing the bully pulpit; it’s what she’s using it to say. Beilock represents a new breed of college president willing to take shots at her own sector. Higher education, in her formulation, has lost its way by becoming too expensive and too political. And it shoulders much of the blame for retribution from the partisan right and flagging confidence in colleges and the value of the credentials they provide.

In a blistering report released Tuesday, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee say campus antisemitism didn’t begin with the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and isn’t confined to a handful of universities.

“Instead, antisemitism in higher education is a systemic problem that affects a broad swath of America’s colleges and universities,” the report states. “The evidence demonstrates that antisemitism on campus is driven by persistent leadership failures and radical faculty and student groups that legitimize and foment antisemitism in classrooms and on campus grounds. Meanwhile, universities with satellite campuses overseas are failing to stop antisemitism and live up to their stated goals of spreading Western values.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s top ranking higher education official sent letters to two accreditors Monday directing them to eliminate their diversity, equity and inclusion standards that he contended were in violation of civil rights law.

In his letters, Kent said the Education Department would continue to recognize the two accreditors but warned that officials could take action against them — including pulling that recognition — if they enforce any of their suspended DEI standards before formally eliminating them. His letters escalate the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI standards at accrediting agencies.