Your Cart is Empty
Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: At the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting on Monday, Eisgruber was confronted with queries on the Trump administration and University governance from several students who had skirted the committee’s rules on submitting questions on advance.
The first question came from Vasanth Visweswaran ’28, who asked Eisgruber how he could use his position as chair of the Association of American Universities (AAU) to “defend all members of the University community from the recent Trump administration attacks on free speech, funding cuts and threats for deportations.”
Guest Contributors
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Columbia University appears to have given in to the government’s anti-constitutional and autocratic attack on free speech and the rule of law. In the face of Project 2025-inspired demands from the Trump administration, Columbia expelled students and revoked degrees. On Friday, they announced further concessions, including, most concerningly to us, the removal of academic self-governance from the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
Princeton, along with 59 others, is on a list of universities targeted by the administration. President Eisgruber has started the pushback, standing up on behalf of academic freedom and saying that the Trump administration is attacking higher education. Professors, students, other universities, and the public should join him.
Keith E. Whittington
The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine
Excerpt: Yesterday the Trump administration launched yet another massive financial blow at a university because it has done some things the administration does not like. This time the University of Pennsylvania's medical research is being decimated because the administration disagrees with the Penn athletic department's transgender policies.
Elisabeth Stewart and Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Princeton will freeze most faculty and staff hiring, citing uncertainty around federal funding and a potential increased endowment tax, according to a memo sent to faculty and staff Wednesday morning. The letter, from Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, follows many other universities adopting hiring freezes in response to funding uncertainty. It represents the University’s most significant response to date to recent federal actions.
Daily Princetonian Editorial Board
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Some institutions have been cowed by threats from the federal government. This acquiescence is dangerous. Complying with constitutionally contested directives before judges rule on their legality normalizes them. As Columbia’s example has taught us, even repeated concessions to the Trump administration won’t protect you. As an institution relatively insulated from financial shocks from the federal government, we have a unique responsibility to speak out. Even among the Ivy League, Princeton’s wealth, prestige, and historical reputation as the most conservative Ivy give the University unique influence.
Christopher L. Eisgruber
The Atlantic
Excerpt: The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America’s prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world.
The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk, presenting the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned.
