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By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
On April 24th, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens spoke about free speech, journalism, and Israel to approximately one hundred attendees gathered in Guyot Hall. The event, entitled “Writing About Israel as a Columnist and as a Jew,” was co-sponsored by a variety of campus organizations, including B’Artzeinu and the Center for Jewish Life. I attended in my capacity as a Writing Fellow for Princetonians for Free Speech, a contributor to the event.
Stephens began by outlining how Western media gets the Israel narrative wrong, framing Israel as the more powerful adversary in a two-sided conflict. “Most of the media treats the Israel story as a Goliath versus David story in which Israel is Goliath because the Palestinians loom smaller. Expand the frame and what you see is a country that is surrounded by current enemies and historic enemies and very hostile populations.”
The pro-Palestine movement on college campuses was a focal point of the event. Stephens called out what he sees as the liberal hypocrisy of the movement. “If your values are progressive, but you are objectively siding with the most fundamentalist, totalitarian, misogynistic and homophobic movement in the world, something is the matter with your thinking.”
Stephens also advised that protestors be wary of the backlash their actions might elicit, drawing a historical comparison to student politics in the Weimar Republic. “When the left in Germany trashed universities in the 1920s, it paved the way for the most extreme right. Be careful that through radicalism, you don’t invite a form of reaction that will be much more terrifying.” He cautioned that the movement for Palestinian freedom could lead to “handing all of our enemies a golden political opportunity.”
Already in response to pro-Palestine protests, the Trump administration has frozen upwards of $11 billion in university federal funding. Stephens took a strong stance against these funding cuts, seeing them as “bald attacks on university life” rather than genuine attempts to curb anti-semitism. “I think that many universities are broken institutions, but the place to fix them is within the university, not with the heavy hammer of withholding federal funds.”
During the Q&A section of the event, an audience member asked Stephens to define the boundaries of appropriate speech about Israel. Stephens responded that, except for pre-established First Amendment restrictions, “all speech about Israel is permissible.” He shared that he has no problem with chants which paint Israel as a genocidal state, as long as he is able to respond. “I have a right to call it anti-semitic,” Stephens said. “It doesn’t mean I’m censoring that speech. I am making an effort to describe that speech as I see it.”
The columnist expressed that it is acceptable to find fault with Israel on the basis of policy, but he voiced his concern about more extreme beliefs. “What I’m worried about is that there is a strain on the left that no longer sees Israel as mistaken on policy [but] sees Israel as fundamentally illegitimate as a state.”
Despite his criticisms of leftist activism, Stephens noted that his speaking engagements have more often been cancelled by far-right groups that reject his support of a two-state solution than far-left ones.
Marisa Hirschfield ’27 studies History and Creative Writing and is a PFS Writing Fellow.
On Jan. 5, the University released its annual Report of the Treasurer. Following a tumultuous year for higher education across the country, the report emphasizes the University’s lab partnerships with federal departments, close ties to active-duty soldiers and veterans, and involvement in AI and public service.
The report, entitled “In the Nation’s Service,” comes after approximately $200 million in research-specific funding was suspended last year by the Trump administration, then partially reinstated over the summer.
Princeton is an undemocratic place. Its premier open deliberative body, the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), is fraught with attempts to filter legitimate dialogue and debate between various campus interests. Indeed, as my colleague Siyeon Lee argued last fall, CPUC meetings “mostly functioned as a Q&A, the decision already made, and the damage already done.”
However, in just under two weeks, at the upcoming Feb. 9 CPUC meeting in the basement of Frist Campus Center, the University community — students, faculty, and staff — will have a rare opportunity for unfettered access to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83.
Princeton claims to care about free speech — University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has written a book about it, and maintains an official policy of institutional restraint to protect students’ freedom to form and express their own opinions. But in this era of government violence, it is no longer possible to defend free speech with an institutional restraint policy tying the University’s hands behind its back.
It is time for Princeton to deviate from the conciliatory principle of strict institutional restraint. It must stand in vigorous opposition against the cruelty of federal immigration officers, as well as other government overreaches that threaten freedom of speech for members of our community.
