Vitus Larrieu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: An executive order signed by President Donald Trump and released on Wednesday, Jan. 29 calls for Princeton and other universities to “monitor” and “report activities by alien students and staff” for actions that constitute antisemitism.
The executive order gives various federal agencies — including the Department of Education — 60 days to create a list of all cases involving a university alleging civil rights violations related to antisemitism that occurred following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A Title VI case related to antisemitism at Princeton was opened by the Department of Education in January 2024, referencing chants at pro-Palestine protests in October 2023.
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Faith in higher education continues to plummet, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—the nation’s leading organization representing faculty interests and a longstanding voice on academic freedom and university governance—has decided to train its guns on the growing movement to establish civic education centers at public universities. The AAUP’s objections amount to a single, unlovely demand: we get to decide what students learn, and nobody else gets a vote.
Six days after the report went online, the AAA fired back with a full-throated defense. “Anthropologists welcome rigorous critique of the discipline,” wrote its president, Carolyn M. Rouse. “What we cannot accept is a sweeping verdict about anthropology’s intellectual culture, scholarly practices, and professional norms built on selective evidence and issued without consultation.
Since faculty voted in may to proctor in-person exams, national news outlets and some alumni have decried the end of Princeton’s 133-year-old tradition of unsupervised testing, but students, faculty, and recent graduates say the conversation within the campus community has been mild.