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By Princetonians for Free Speech
PFS original content
President Eisgruber and his administration appear to have made a very good start on the new academic year. They conducted a first-year orientation that sent all the right messages on free speech, academic freedom, respect for diverse viewpoints, and the need for the university and its departments to avoid taking institutional positions on controversial public issues. They did the same in a new website on free speech which provides clarity on the free speech rules and where students should go with questions and concerns.
Furthermore, all students received an email from the university discussing the importance of free speech, Princeton’s rules thereon, and the new website.
We hope to see continued deft handling by the administration of the resumption of raging pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests, flagrant violations of university rules, and the accelerating cacophony of what seems sure to be an extraordinarily divisive presidential campaign.
“I hope that you will lean in to this community where we have these opportunities for discussion of sensitive and hard subjects in a way that I think is rare in our society right now,” Eisgruber said on August 27, while leading for the third year an orientation session focused on the Class of 2028 and incoming transfer students. He urged them to take advantage of the “transformative” opportunity at Princeton to meet and learn from others with whom they disagree.
Eisgruber stressed that the University’s Statement on Freedom of Expression“guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.”
He also seemed to come closer than ever before to endorsing the kind of institutional neutrality on contentious public issues that other schools, including Harvard and Cornell, have adopted, and that Princeton Professors including Robert P. George, Emmanuel Bourbouhakis and others have advocated. He said: “There will come a time, I suspect, when some of you want the University to issue a statement endorsing some position that you cherish or condemning some practice that you abhor. You might ask me for a statement, and, if you do, I will almost certainly refuse because free speech presupposes self-reliance.”
Joining Eisgruber in the discussion and in warmly welcoming new students was Vice President for Student Life W. Rochelle Calhoun, She had faced a demand on May 3 for her resignation by 128 faculty members in a letter to the Daily Princetonian after she had issued a letter accusing students who occupied Clio Hall of “abusive” treatment of University staff members” in “an escalation ... into unlawful behavior that created a dangerous situation for protesters, University staff, and law enforcement.”
At the August 27 orientation, Calhoun urged students to visit the University’s new Protests and Free Expression website, which she said “gathers all of the information you need to know about how we actually exercise our right to free speech.” It also specifies the campus locations where protests are not allowed, including the lawn in front of Nassau Hall.
As this academic year starts, we hope that Princeton’s administration will consider the PFS Top Ten action items, designed to embed into the everyday experience and outlook of all students, faculty and administrators those core principles that inform Princeton’s free speech and academic freedom rules. One of those items was for Princeton to commit to a robust orientation on free speech every year.
While we applaud the actions of Princeton at the beginning of this school year, more needs to be done to build on this start. We note that this week Princeton was ranked near the bottom, 231 out of 251 colleges surveyed, in the highly respected annual free speech survey conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
And we dare hope that the disturbing events on campuses across the country since the barbaric Hamas murders of more than 1,200 people last October 7 have given the leaders of Princeton and other universities a better understanding of the dire need for reform of higher education.
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Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, top colleges and universities have faced an onslaught of federal attacks: slashing grant money for research, pressuring schools to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, cracking down on visas for international students, and ending graduate program sponsorship for active duty military at top schools. However, some Ivy League universities — the center of many of Trump’s ongoing attacks — have decreased messaging on the potential consequences of these federal directives.
“One thing that’s been clear is that a lot of universities have felt that publicity would bring no advantage or do them no good,” history professor David Bell GS ’91, who has been outspoken about federal actions against universities, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
As a professor who is known to dissent from progressive ideologies that are dominant at universities such as Princeton, where I’ve taught for nearly 40 years, I’m frequently asked by students for advice about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them. Some are pro-Israel, or politically and socially conservative, or religiously observant.
They fear being treated unfairly by faculty members who are hostile to their beliefs. Many are afraid of being regarded as outcasts by their more liberal or progressive peers. They worry about being excluded from academic opportunities or not treated equitably in social or other extracurricular activities. To these students I say, with regret: You’re right to worry. I’ve seen these things happen.
Universities may be tempted to treat these capabilities as inevitable improvements in education. Students will be able to consume vast amounts of information, more than ever before. But like AI writing itself, such consumption would be vast but shallow. The more interesting possibility, then, is that AI will force universities to rediscover the value of intellectual work that cannot be outsourced.
