In this episode of the Princeton Tory Podcast, Billy Wade '23 discusses the state of free speech on Princeton's campus with three of the University's professors: Sergiu Klainerman, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics; John Benedict Londregan '88, Professor of Politics and International Affairs; and Elizabeth Bogan, Senior Lecturer in Economics. Delving into faculty experiences with the landscape of free speech at Princeton, Wade and our guests examine the role of educational institutions as havens for free expression, the impact of cancel culture on the speech of academics, and proper limitations on the ability of universities to suppress opinion.
By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
Last year, for a comedy show on campus, I wrote a sketch about the fictional Society to Lessen Unamerican Teaching (note the acronym), a group that wants to rewrite history textbooks in Florida. In the skit, the characters pitch ridiculous falsehoods about American history (e.g., Hillary Clinton wrote the Communist Manifesto and also brought smallpox to the New World). My intention was to satirize classroom censorship of historical injustice and expose the absurdity of legislation like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which shapes curricula in a politically-pointed way.
Olivia Sanchez and Annie Rupertus
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In interviews with the ‘Prince,’ six students subject to University disciplinary proceedings described a tangled process that appeared fixated on searching for protest leaders to blame and employed tactics they described as invasive. The students were all investigated for supposed participation in pro-Palestine disruptions last spring.
Their accounts, corroborated by dozens of documents reviewed by the ‘Prince,’ including emails and investigation records, provide a rare glance behind the scenes of the University’s investigative apparatus.
James (Jimmy) Lane ’92
Princetonians for Free Speech Original Content
I am a HUGE fan of the “I” in DEI. I will leave the “D” and “E” for others to opine. This essay is mostly a story of how multiple-perspectives critical thinking training by a compassionate classmate at Princeton University helped a first-generation college student become included in middle class America and why a university culture of free speech and open inquiry is so vital to upward mobility.