Commentary: Academic freedom under siege: Universities must resist political interference and reform internally

April 04, 2025 1 min read

Emmanuel Bourbouhakis, Jacqueline Gottlieb, Tarek Masoud, Steven Pinker, and Jon Rieder
Boston Globe

Excerpt: As chairs of the Academic Freedom Councils at Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton universities, we are alarmed at the threats to academic freedom currently faced by American universities. Universities are now confronted with extraordinary intrusions into their affairs by the federal government. At the same time, many threats to academic freedom emanate from within universities themselves. In this moment of crisis, we have an opportunity to address both threats, and to recommit the universities to their mission of advancing and disseminating knowledge. 

Click here for link to full article


Leave a comment


Also in Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Turning Tragedy into Dialogue: After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, can America move beyond violence?

September 19, 2025 3 min read

Princetonians for Free Speech

The political violence that has ravaged America for too many years has now led to the horrifying assassination on September 10, on the campus of Utah Valley University, of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a champion of free speech whose attacks on the left helped win him a big following among young conservatives while infuriating many on the left. He was planning to debate all comers at the campus event, as was his custom.

Read More
Princeton police step up town Jewish Center patrols after repeated graffiti around town

September 17, 2025 1 min read

Leela Hensler 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: The Princeton Police Department has stepped up patrols of the town’s Jewish Center on Nassau Street. The shift comes in the wake of half a dozen reported incidents of graffiti around town beginning in mid-August that are being investigated as “bias intimidation incidents.”

“All of these investigations remain active, [and] our detective bureau is following up on any possible leads,” said Captain Matthew Solovay of the Princeton Police Department in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. He also confirmed that patrols around parks and the Jewish Center had increased.

Read More
Commentary: Charlie Kirk died for ideals the left has ignored

September 17, 2025 1 min read

Maximillian Meyer
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: Members of the far-left have spent years talking down to the American people from a position of self-styled moral superiority. They have scolded that it is racist to support the police, transphobic to seek to keep biological men out of women’s sports, and emboldening of Nazis to dare to support President Trump.

Rhetoric reducing political opponents to “Nazis” excuses people from ever having to engage with the other side. And when the core values of honest dissent and earnest dialogue slip out of the political arena, it’s all too easy for violence to fill the void.

Read More