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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.
Matters of viewpoint diversity have recently received considerable attention in the academy and the media. A recent essay by Lisa Siraganian, “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” makes the case against efforts to increase viewpoint diversity.
I believe that the lack of viewpoint and intellectual diversity within the university has hindered the pursuit of knowledge and the well-being of society. I would thus like to take up Siraganian’s invitation and charge.
“I’ve had the tremendous privilege of knowing so many fantastic students at Princeton, who I know will become extraordinary military leaders. And I think that it would be a massive shame if that potential was eliminated,” the student said in response to an announcement that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 made on Feb. 27. In a video posted on social media, Hegseth announced that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) will end sponsorship for graduate students at Princeton and other Ivy League institutions beginning in the 2026–27 academic year.
University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that there are “a dozen active-duty military graduate students currently enrolled at Princeton, representing all four branches of the U.S. Armed services with all but two of those students enrolled at SPIA.” As the policy currently stands, active-duty service members may be unable to attend Princeton for graduate school while remaining in service.
In Part I of this series, I wrote that President Eisgruber’s Terms of Respect deserves credit for clearly distinguishing between free speech as a moral principle and the First Amendment as a legal doctrine, and for rejecting the simplistic claim that universities violate free speech whenever they regulate expression.
In Part II, I analyzed one of the sources of that reluctance and its surprising influence in bringing Eisgruber to this point.
Now we can get to the heart of the book. Eisgruber’s novel approach to campus free speech issues builds on this foundation, to argue that campus free speech issues aren’t really campus issues, and aren’t really about free speech. Rather, campuses reflect national divisions in microcosm, and the division is not about speech and its discontents, but about “the meaning of respect and, ultimately, what it means to treat people as equals.” He ultimately concludes that while speech has to foster constructive dialogue and truth-seeking, the controversies making waves are about the terms on which that constructive dialogue occurs—which is a good thing, as Eisgruber and his critics alike agree—and that universities are closer to being models (albeit imperfect ones) than sources of the problem. It’s this surprising take that gives Terms of Respect its punch and has made Eisgruber a minor folk hero among academia’s defenders.
