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Bill Hewitt
Princeton Tory
Editor’s note: As the Naming Committee and the University approach the end of their deliberations on the vitally important decision whether to replace or remove the 10-foot bronze statue of the indispensable early Princeton president John Witherspoon (1768 to 1794), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, over his ownership of two slaves, we are featuring the latest of several articles (this one in the Princeton Tory) by Bill Hewitt ’74. The November 3 symposium, “Monuments, Memory, and the John Witherspoon Statue,” is the last scheduled public exploration of the issues. Hewitt has acquired encyclopedic knowledge of the historical facts, which he says show Withespoon to have been a heroic figure and enlightened for his time about slavery and its eventual abolition. The statue has stood in Firestone Plaza outside East Pyne Hall since being installed in 2001 under the leadership of Princeton President Harold T. Shapiro.
President Eisgruber has flagrantly failed his own stated standards of conduct – and abandoned his duties to the Princeton community. He refuses to prevent publication of multiple statements on University websites that falsely defame the reputation of John Witherspoon, Princeton’s indispensable early president and a founder of the United States. Moreover, these defamations’ profound misdirection about Witherspoon’s true relation to slavery have sown anguish and dissension across the University community.
Actions have consequences; so does inaction. After a long period of neglect by the administration, on October 31st, I finally placed before the University’s Judicial Committee a “Complaint regarding the Defamations of John Witherspoon and Related Breaches of Duty to the Princeton University Community.” It sets forth the defamations of John Witherspoon by the “To Be Known and Heard: Systemic Racism and Princeton University” and Princeton & Slavery Project websites.
Here is why I have taken such a drastic step. In his March 31, 2022 letter to Princeton Professor Keith Whittington regarding the “Known and Heard” website, published jointly by two University offices, President Eisgruber publicly enunciated for himself and his administration these standards:
To be sure, speech that comes from University offices is properly subject to more control from the central administration than is faculty and student speech. We insist, for example, that speech from University offices be factually accurate, respectful of University values, and consistent with the mission and responsibilities of the offices authoring it (emphasis added).
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Prestigious universities and leading state schools across the nation have embraced viewpoint diversity by building new institutions—civic education centers and the like—which are simultaneously on yet apart from the campus. Harvard has quietly taken a different tack. Over the past several months, the university’s top brass have been asking major donors for $10 million gifts to endow new professorships under the banner of “viewpoint diversity.” Provost John Manning, a scholar often associated with the conservative legal movement, has led the effort, aiming to place between 20 and 30 new faculty across schools and departments rather than siloed in a standalone institute.
Why Harvard would need additional funding for this is an open question, but putting that partly aside, we ought to ask what to make of this unique initiative. It stands a chance of being either the most consequential reform attempt in elite higher education this decade, or a sophisticated piece of reputation management serving double duty as a clever fundraiser. Which one it turns out to be depends on whether Harvard has thought carefully about what viewpoint diversity means, and whether it intends to execute in line with a considered answer.
Are some schools better at fostering intellectual diversity than others? The study clearly reveals that the most elite universities are among those with the least ideological diversity. Princeton is ranked 13 out of the 55 in the study, with its faculty slightly more ideologically diverse than, for instance, UC Berkeley, Brown, Dartmouth and Harvard, and slightly less diverse than Stanford, Cornell, UCLA or Georgetown.
There is little doubt that this study provides another opening for politicians and critics to attack higher education, perhaps in unfair ways. Princeton could help neutralize this by joining those reform-minded university leaders in the now burgeoning effort to regain the public’s trust in higher education.
A federal judge ruled last month that the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) termination of more than 1,400 grants in April 2025 had violated the Constitution on several counts. Princeton researchers await the effects of the verdict, which ordered that the NEH must rescind its termination notices.
