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A PFS Editorial
Last week was a good week for free speech at Princeton. Three separate events were held covering controversial topics that had drawn protests and even shout-downs at other universities, and there was only one minor and appropriately carried out protest. Furthermore, university administrators addressed all concerns of the event sponsors, supplied on-site security, and in one case, reminded a small group of protestors of the rules on protesting before the event.
Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) co-sponsored one of the events and provided financial and other support to the student groups that put on the other two. PFS also ran a full-page ad in the Daily Princetonian a few days before the first event in which we provided the key phrases from Princeton’s rules on free speech and protests, as well as quotes about the importance of free speech from President Eisgruber. The ad was put up as a poster around campus and made available to event sponsors to use as a handout at events.
The first event was held on November 13 and featured Riley Gaines, the former All-American college swimmer who has become probably the most well-known speaker against transgender athletes participating in women’s sports. It was sponsored by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, a student group that advocates for free speech on campus. The POCC is an outstanding group, and PFS is privileged to work with its student members on an on-going basis.
This event went on without any protest, even though Riley Gaines has drawn strong protests on other campuses. In one widely covered situation last April, she had to have a police escort to leave an event at San Francisco State that was disrupted.
The second event, held on November 15, was co-sponsored by PFS and the James Madison Program. It also drew no protest. The speaker was Heather Mac Donald, who often speaks on college campuses. She is the author of several books, including her most recent one, When Race Trumps Merit, and The War on Cops. Her speeches on campuses have often generated protests, including speeches at Harvard, Penn, and Colgate. Her speech at Claremont McKenna College in 2017 was disrupted, resulting in the suspension of several students there.
The third event, a panel, was sponsored by the Princeton chapter of the Federalist Society. PFS provides support for Federalist Society events on campus. It was entitled “The Transgender Movement and Its Assault on Biology.”
There was a protest by a few students, but a Princeton administrator was there to remind protestors of Princeton’s rules, and the protestors complied with those rules. They held signs, but in no way tried to disrupt the discussion.
Particularly given the protests that are currently going at universities around the country, alumni should be heartened that these three programs went forward with no attempt to disrupt them. The rules were followed, and university administrators were actively engaged with the sponsors of the events to address any potential issues. It was a good week, indeed, for free speech at Princeton.
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Prestigious universities and leading state schools across the nation have embraced viewpoint diversity by building new institutions—civic education centers and the like—which are simultaneously on yet apart from the campus. Harvard has quietly taken a different tack. Over the past several months, the university’s top brass have been asking major donors for $10 million gifts to endow new professorships under the banner of “viewpoint diversity.” Provost John Manning, a scholar often associated with the conservative legal movement, has led the effort, aiming to place between 20 and 30 new faculty across schools and departments rather than siloed in a standalone institute.
Why Harvard would need additional funding for this is an open question, but putting that partly aside, we ought to ask what to make of this unique initiative. It stands a chance of being either the most consequential reform attempt in elite higher education this decade, or a sophisticated piece of reputation management serving double duty as a clever fundraiser. Which one it turns out to be depends on whether Harvard has thought carefully about what viewpoint diversity means, and whether it intends to execute in line with a considered answer.
Are some schools better at fostering intellectual diversity than others? The study clearly reveals that the most elite universities are among those with the least ideological diversity. Princeton is ranked 13 out of the 55 in the study, with its faculty slightly more ideologically diverse than, for instance, UC Berkeley, Brown, Dartmouth and Harvard, and slightly less diverse than Stanford, Cornell, UCLA or Georgetown.
There is little doubt that this study provides another opening for politicians and critics to attack higher education, perhaps in unfair ways. Princeton could help neutralize this by joining those reform-minded university leaders in the now burgeoning effort to regain the public’s trust in higher education.
A federal judge ruled last month that the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) termination of more than 1,400 grants in April 2025 had violated the Constitution on several counts. Princeton researchers await the effects of the verdict, which ordered that the NEH must rescind its termination notices.
