Your Cart is Empty
Robert P. George
American Enterprise
Excerpt: A disturbing trend I have observed over the course of my academic career is the general decline in classical education. The slow demise of classical learning—particularly in core liberal arts fields—has hit our universities hard, damaging an entire generation’s understanding and embrace of civic thought and classical wisdom.
Even our nation’s so-called “elite” institutions—such as Princeton University, my own academic home—have moved away from classical education. Most strikingly, Princeton’s Classics Department eliminated bedrock Latin and Greek language requirements for students majoring in classics as part of an effort to become more interdisciplinary and “inclusive.” At the same time, signs of hope are emerging—especially in the past few years.
Annabel Green '26
Philosophy Professor Jennifer A. Frey of the University of Tulsa delivered a lecture on October 21, 2025 titled “What is a University and How Can We Recover It?” as part of the James Madison Program’s Stuart Lecture Series on Institutional Corruption in America. Professor Frey explored the historical vocation of the university and the crisis facing the contemporary academy.
City Journal
Excerpt:
Princeton University, like all Ivy League schools, has sunk more deeply into administrative activism over recent years. The school maintains a robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy, with more than six DEI employees per 1,000 students. The school also displays several other activist commitments that distract it from its educational mission—most notably, Princeton’s decision to intervene in the Students for Fair Admissions case at the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative action.
Elizabeth Hu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed conflicts between free speech and censorship on college campuses during a discussion at the Princeton Public Library on Monday. He was joined in conversation by Deborah Pearlstein, Director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Policy.
He also addressed the difference between censorship and controversy through a reference to Judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at Stanford Law School in 2023. Duncan’s talk was interrupted by student protesters throughout and was eventually cut short. “That’s real censorship,” Eisgruber said. “It made it impossible for a speaker that some people on campus wanted to hear to be heard, and that should be recognized.”
