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According to knowledgeable sources, the Princeton Committee on Conference and Faculty Appeal, comprised of 9 faculty members, issued on Tuesday a strongly worded rebuke to a high-ranking official’s summary rejection of a formal complaint seeking an investigation into attacks on the University’s official website portraying Professor Joshua Katz as a racist.
The committee’s detailed letter was in response to an appeal by Professor Sergiu Klainerman of the official rejection. Professor Klainerman's original complaint, joined by seven other Princeton faculty, was that unnamed officials had violated University regulations in using the website to discredit Professor Katz, by smearing him as a racist for a controversial 2020 article criticizing certain race-related demands by activist faculty members.
The appeals committee’s letter found fault with multiple aspects of Vice-Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Michele Minter’s December 7, 2021 ruling dismissing the October 4, 2021 complaint, the sources said.
The faculty committee is chaired by Professor Jean Schwarzbauer. Its letter said that all members agreed that the Minter letter dismissing the complaint was contrary to University policies and that the complaint raised a number of issues that should be investigated.
The committee’s harsh assessment contrasted starkly with the tribute to President Eisgruber’s "outspoken defense of free speech” by the Princeton Board of Trustees the day before, in its announcement that it had extended his tenure for “at least five [more] years.”
The Trustees’ high regard for Eisgruber’s stance on free speech also contrasts starkly with a March 15 letter from PFS urging the Princeton Board of Trustees to commission an investigation into the University’s persecution of Katz. And with the blistering assessment by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) of Princeton’s attacks on Katz’s free speech in a March 9 letter sent to the Princeton Board of Trustees. And with the similar assessment by the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) in a March 29 letter to President Eisgruber. And with a harsh criticism by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) on the same issue.
ACTA, AFA, and FIRE are among the nation’s most respected organizations supporting campus free speech. Yet Eisgruber and the Board of Trustees have ignored the criticisms by ACTA, FIRE, and PFS. Eisgruber rejected the AFA’s criticism in a March 31 letter that implicitly endorsed the same arguments that the 9-member faculty committee has now spurned. Eisgruber’s letter contained numerous misleading statements, which are detailed in a three-part analysis on the PFS website.
The faculty appeals committee has recommended a full investigation. The question is whether the Princeton administration will continue to stonewall.
Open PFS critiques of Eisgruber letter to the Academic Freedom Alliance configuration options
Isaac Barsoum
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Leftists at Princeton cheer the assassination of Charlie Kirk — at least, that’s what you would think if you’ve been reading the Opinion section of this newspaper lately. On Sept. 17, Tigers for Israel President Maximillian Meyer ’27 declared that Princeton’s progressives exhibit “a willingness to cheer violence itself.” Princeton Tory Publisher Zach Gardner ’26 didn’t go quite so far, but did say that students “treat bloodshed flippantly,” at least in the context of Kirk’s assassination.
Here’s one problem: large portions of both their arguments rest on evidence drawn from Fizz. For the uninitiated, Fizz is a campus social media app where any Princeton student can say anything at all, true or false, behind the veil of anonymity. It is remarkable that I have to say this: Fizz is not real life.
Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: About three-quarters of the way into an interview with The Daily Princetonian, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 made a bold pronouncement: “American universities are the best that they’ve ever been.”
Eisgruber has been in the business of speaking up for universities since the beginning of the Trump administration, which has put unprecedented pressure on Princeton and its peer institutions. His new book, “Terms of Respect,” argues, as the book’s subtitle reads, “how colleges get free speech right.” Despite the perception of intolerance on American college campuses, Eisgruber writes, colleges still host thriving and robust discourse.
By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
On September 17th, Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen delivered the annual Constitution Day Lecture in McCosh 50. The lecture, co-hosted by the James Madison Program and the Program in Law and Normative Thinking, was entitled “Our Civil Rights Revolution.” Professor Gersen discussed the history of affirmative action and the evolving meaning of civil rights.
