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By Stuart Taylor, Jr., President of PFS
Since the University of Chicago paved the way in 1967 with its Kalven Committee Report, some 30 other American universities and colleges have followed suit by insisting on “institutional neutrality” on political and social issues, while also affirming their commitment to the academic freedom of faculty and students in the face of suppression from internal and/or external entities.
The case for institutional neutrality is a broadly shared perception that a university, college, president, dean, provost, or academic department should not take a public position on a political or social issue unless it threatens the very mission of the University and its value of free inquiry. The reason is that the effect could be to deter students and faculty members from expressing their own opinions lest they appear at odds with their institutions.
Campuses that have adopted the institutional neutrality principle include Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, the University of Texas System, Purdue, and Northwestern.
Princeton has not done so. And President Eisgruber has repeatedly rejected calls from groups, including Princetonians for Free Speech, that it adopt institutional neutrality.
In his May 27, 2025 Commencement address, Eisgruber detailed reasons, including this: “Some current-day proponents of the neutrality standard . . . appear to become uneasy when, for example, scholars expose and analyze the role of race, sexuality, or prejudice in society and politics.”
To the contrary, the institutional neutrality standard suggests no limit at all on what individual scholars or students can say or do. It calls for the institutions where they work to avoid taking collective positions lest they chill the freedoms of speech and thought of the scholars and students.
The chill is evidenced by, among other things, responses to our annual PFS surveys of Princeton students, the last of which shows that “52% of Princeton students would be somewhat or very uncomfortable expressing disagreement with a position that Princeton or their academic major’s department has publicly taken, with only 9% being very comfortable doing so.”
In addition, Eisgruber cites no standard to explain why or why not Princeton is taking a position.
As the Kalven Committee report said: “The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. [It] cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness. There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives.”
In his Commencement address, Eisgruber also saidthat “though I agree with much that is said in the Kalven Report, I have never liked the language of ‘neutrality,’ partly because ‘neutral’ has multiple meanings,” with synonyms including“innocuous,” “unobjectionable,” “harmless,” “bland,” and “colorless.” He added: “‘Neutral’ can mean ‘impartial,’ which is a more precise way to capture what the Kalven Committee had in mind.”
So call it “institutional impartiality,” if you prefer. But please be clear that the principle would impose no limitation on what any individual scholar or student can say.
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In April 1995, University maintenance crews spent two days cleaning “walkways, benches, plazas and walls on campus,” working to remove not dirt or debris, but simple sidewalk chalk. The chalk drawings, according to a report from The Daily Princetonian, consisted of “pro-gay messages” written by hand during Pride Week. After the removal, advocates were rightly in uproar. Following the incident, the University, claiming that the discrepancy had transpired because of “cross-office confusion,” clarified its chalking policy — it was henceforth banned, in all cases.
Three decades on, chalk at Princeton has found itself relegated to dusty trays in classrooms and lecture halls. Hardly anyone — students, activists, artists, campus organizations, candidates, schoolchildren — chalks University grounds anymore. Simply put, the University’s ban has worked. But the question remains: Why is Princeton so afraid of chalk?
There is exactly one kind of institution in the world whose product is “thinking” — the university. This is an existential challenge for every university, Princeton most definitely included, now that nearly all artificial intelligence is purpose-built to offload the hard work of thinking.
Universities need to return to the foundations of learning with trust — and verification — at the heart of their relationship with students. They also need to be far more prescriptive about what learning looks like so that students who arrive with limited capacity for deep reading have the time and space to develop their critical thinking skills.
The University has implemented a new limit on the number of Undergraduate Student Government (USG), Graduate Student Government, and Council of the Princeton University Committee (CPUC) student representatives allowed to attend faculty meetings.
In an email to student leaders obtained by The Daily Princetonian, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Ian Deas wrote that the new changes will go into effect at the Sept. 14 faculty meeting and each constituency will be able to send a maximum of two observers to a meeting. The Rules and Procedures of the Faculty do not specify the number of observers permitted from the student governments or CPUC.
