Commentary: Liberal students debate, you’re just not listening

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: At Princeton University, students who want to help manage the dormitories evidently need to be schooled first on the “Four I’s of Oppression.”

National Review obtained recordings and documents from the two mandatory “DEI training” sessions this week. They provide a window into how, despite the Trump administration’s efforts to purge such programming from campus life, DEI is alive and well at some of the most elite universities.

Jamie Saxon
Princeton University News

Excerpt: President Christopher L. Eisgruber welcomed transfer and first-year students to Princeton on Tuesday as new members of a scholarly community where people of every background should feel welcome to engage in vigorous discussion and debate, grounded in the University’s “bold and powerful” free speech protections. 

Eisgruber encouraged incoming students to engage across differences of opinion, even when it makes them uncomfortable, noting that “discomfort can sometimes generate understanding and insight.”

August 19, 2025
By Tal Fortgang ‘17

Columbia University’s recent settlement with the Trump administration represents a long-awaited watershed moment in the ongoing battle between the federal government and American universities. Its arrival is enormously symbolic within the ongoing saga and is a sign of things to come. How would the federal government treat free speech and academic freedom concerns? Was it looking to avoid going to court, or would it welcome the opportunity to litigate formally? And how much would each side be willing to compromise on its deeply entrenched positions? 

A settlement – better described as a deal, not merely because dealmaking is the President’s preferred framework for governance but because the feds did not actually sue Columbia -- was always the most likely outcome of the showdown. It is not inherently inappropriate as a resolution to legitimate civil rights concerns, though the administration probably could have achieved its objectives more sustainably had it followed the procedure set out in civil rights law. Nevertheless, a deal has been struck, and assessing it is more complex than simply deeming it good or bad by virtue of its existing – though many certainly wish each side had simply declined to negotiate with the other. 

Digging into the deal – and attending to its silences -- reveals a combination of promising reforms, distractions, and even some failures. Most critically, the agreement’s silence on admissions and hiring practices suggests that the underlying issues that precipitated this crisis will likely resurface, creating a cycle of federal intervention that will relegate this episode to a footnote.