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Annabel Green '26
Before declaring my major in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), I had considered many majors such as classics, history, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. I settled on SPIA because it offers a disciplinary breadth through which I can narrow down my tentative interests.
Early into the major, I was sympathetic to the political orthodoxy through which many Princetonians operate which I would summarize as characterized by critical theory (i.e. neo-Marxist concepts of group identity and power struggle). However, I soon found myself increasingly in misalignment with the prevailing narrative and the deep grievance and resentment my fellow classmates seemed to feel toward the current state of the country.
A change of heart, catalyzed by an internal wrestling with progressive ideology, began to take shape during my Sophomore year. I increasingly sought out the views of economists and intellectuals who aligned with conservative and classical liberal values. While I consider myself as naturally hesitant and unsure of myself, I found conviction through these endeavors. Although I was raised an atheist, I became convinced by arguments which described the destructiveness of New Atheism and of postmodernism; characterized by nihilism, moral relativism, and the repudiation of any claims of objectivity and of non-negotiable ultimacy (i.e. God).
My ideological transformation was made available to me through the freedom of discourse both online and amongst friends and family. Particularly, I deeply value the authentic conversations in which I engage with my twin sister, a student at Cornell.
The freedom of speech has been mistakenly reduced to the prerogative to speak without fear of censorship or retaliation, and while it very much is this, the freedom of speech is something more essential. The freedom of speech precedes and succeeds the freedom of conscience. Both of these freedoms are integral to the integrity and development of the individual. We must be allowed to question not only the arguments with which we are presented but also the premises and assumptions which underlie those very arguments.
Wrestling with ideas is a toilsome endeavor that is messy and not without flaws. Yet there is a great and important wound that forms when you humbly accept your former ignorance and hubris. The freedom of speech is vital for the improvement of ideas, because ideas need to withstand criticism, opposition, and the unrelenting test of time. In On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill wisely remarked:
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."
Annabel Green ’26 is a Public and International Affairs major, and a member of the Global Health Program at Princeton. She hails from Boulder, Colorado. She is a PFS Writing Fellow.
On November 12, former ACLU Legal Director David Cole delivered the annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. His talk, entitled “A Defense of Free Speech from Its Progressive Critics,” drew a crowd to the Friend Center. Cole has litigated several major First Amendment cases and currently serves as a law professor at Georgetown. A self-identified progressive, Cole explicated an argument in favor of the First Amendment.
Cole outlined the main progressive critiques of the First Amendment. “What unites these critiques is the sense that the First Amendment is too protective at the cost of another very important value in our society: equality.” He also acknowledged the progressive skepticism of free speech’s “core demand” of neutrality – the idea that the government “must be neutral as to the content and viewpoint of speech when it is regulating private speakers.”
On Jan. 2, the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life released a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding a new University policy regulating audio and visual recording. The policy classifies any recording made at events deemed private — where not all participants have consented — as “secret or covert,” placing such recordings in violation of University rules.
However, recording at public events, such as advertised public speaker events, is permitted unless the speaker, performer, or party hosting the event explicitly states otherwise. “The policy does not cover meetings open to all current members of the resident University community or to the public,” according to the FAQ website.
Last month’s issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) fawns over Michael Park ’98, a right-wing lawyer and, since 2018, a U.S. circuit judge. Park’s portrait commands the cover, while the accompanying long-form profile, titled “The Contender,” speculates that he could become Donald Trump’s next nominee to the Supreme Court. The author is P.G. Sittenfeld ’07.
But Sittenfeld is not just any old journalist. Last May, President Donald Trump pardoned Sittenfeld, a one-time rising star in Cincinnati politics, following his conviction on federal bribery and extortion charges in 2022. Sittenfeld, a Democrat, owes his freedom to Trump — the man who nominated his subject Park to his judgeship, and the man with the power to elevate Park further to the nation’s highest court. Nowhere does PAW disclose this striking conflict of interest.
