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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.
Matters of viewpoint diversity have recently received considerable attention in the academy and the media. A recent essay by Lisa Siraganian, “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” makes the case against efforts to increase viewpoint diversity.
I believe that the lack of viewpoint and intellectual diversity within the university has hindered the pursuit of knowledge and the well-being of society. I would thus like to take up Siraganian’s invitation and charge.
“I’ve had the tremendous privilege of knowing so many fantastic students at Princeton, who I know will become extraordinary military leaders. And I think that it would be a massive shame if that potential was eliminated,” the student said in response to an announcement that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 made on Feb. 27. In a video posted on social media, Hegseth announced that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) will end sponsorship for graduate students at Princeton and other Ivy League institutions beginning in the 2026–27 academic year.
University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that there are “a dozen active-duty military graduate students currently enrolled at Princeton, representing all four branches of the U.S. Armed services with all but two of those students enrolled at SPIA.” As the policy currently stands, active-duty service members may be unable to attend Princeton for graduate school while remaining in service.
In Part I of this series, I wrote that President Eisgruber’s Terms of Respect deserves credit for clearly distinguishing between free speech as a moral principle and the First Amendment as a legal doctrine, and for rejecting the simplistic claim that universities violate free speech whenever they regulate expression.
In Part II, I analyzed one of the sources of that reluctance and its surprising influence in bringing Eisgruber to this point.
Now we can get to the heart of the book. Eisgruber’s novel approach to campus free speech issues builds on this foundation, to argue that campus free speech issues aren’t really campus issues, and aren’t really about free speech. Rather, campuses reflect national divisions in microcosm, and the division is not about speech and its discontents, but about “the meaning of respect and, ultimately, what it means to treat people as equals.” He ultimately concludes that while speech has to foster constructive dialogue and truth-seeking, the controversies making waves are about the terms on which that constructive dialogue occurs—which is a good thing, as Eisgruber and his critics alike agree—and that universities are closer to being models (albeit imperfect ones) than sources of the problem. It’s this surprising take that gives Terms of Respect its punch and has made Eisgruber a minor folk hero among academia’s defenders.
