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In his new book Terms of Respect, How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber argues that all is well with America’s universities when it comes to free speech and academic freedom. He takes issue with the view that over the last few decades America’s colleges and universities have lost their way – chilling free speech and undermining viewpoint diversity and academic freedom – as they have drifted towards activism and political orthodoxy. Eisgruber’s view, which he has stated in numerous forums in recent months, stands in sharp contrast to the widespread critique of current college campus culture.
It is important to clarify that threats to free speech and academic freedom are just one symptom of a transformation that has taken place among elite universities, as their core mission has steadily drifted from knowledge and truth seeking toward social activism. This transformation now permeates admissions, faculty hiring and promotion, curriculum, and administrative priorities. In the process, campus culture has become divisive, illiberal and dogmatic. Free speech and academic freedom are casualties of this trend, despite the regular statements by campus administrators of their allegiance to free speech principles. This transformation spawned Princetonians for Free Speech and over 25 similar alumni groups throughout the country, as well as faculty groups such as the Princeton Council on Academic Freedom.
In his book, Eisgruber takes issue with critics of today’s campus culture, most notably the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression(FIRE) and its ranking of US colleges and universities based on their free speech climate. Princeton ranks 160 out of 257 this year. But FIRE, itself, says its rankings are often used for purposes for which they are not intended. FIRE is a widely respected advocate for free speech and academic freedom. It is demonstrably non-partisan, despite what Eisgruber says, as shown by its criticism of actions against universities by the Trump Administration. Why is Eisgruber gratuitously attacking FIRE? Apparently because it has dared to criticize aspects of campus culture and to suggest reforms that many other universities, but not Princeton, have now made.
PFS also very briefly comes under attack, and so we thought it best to clarify our purpose and mission:
We see current external pressures from the federal government as often containing threats to free speech and academic freedom, as well as institutional independence, and have said so. We regularly publish news and critiques of current government actions. But we also argue that recognizing the need for internal reform is the only lasting way to fix higher education.
On October 3 The Chronicle of Higher Education published a review of Eisgruber’s book: A Princeton President’s Evasions, Christopher L. Eisgruber’s new book misunderstands the past and fails to meet the present. It points out that critics of higher education are not confined to outside advocacy groups like FIRE and the network of alumni groups such as PFS, but also include a growing list of current university leaders advocating for change, whom Eisgruber has publicly rebuked for failing to stand with him, as reported in the recent Atlantic feature, The Elite University Presidents who Despise One Another.
PFS hopes that Eisgruber and Princeton’s Board of Trustees will recognize that solely defending the status quo, as President Eisgruber seems to be doing with this book, is not the way to preserve Pinceton’s historic leading role in education.
The shooting at Brown is deeply tragic. But it is not the time for mere thoughts and prayers. It hasn’t been for decades. As another Ivy League university, this moment calls for Princeton to stand in solidarity with the victims of the Brown shooting by pushing for significant reform to fight violence. University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 is uniquely equipped as the past chair and active board member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) — an organization with a precedent of condemning gun violence — to lobby for gun reform policies on the national and state level.
A discussion about Fizz and the role of social media in our discourse took place at Princeton University on December 3rd, 2025, hosted by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) and funded by Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), While the discussion has been lauded as an example of what can come about through open and civil exchange of ideas, several questions remain worth considering. What is the place of anonymous speech in our society? Should someone take responsibility for the things they say? Or has our public discourse been hollowed out by social media to the point where online commentary should be considered performative?
Tal Fortgang ‘17
When Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber spoke at Harvard on November 5, 2025, he expressed what to his detractors may have sounded like an epiphany. “There’s a genuine civic crisis in America,” he said, noting how polarization and social-media amplification have made civil discourse uniquely difficult. Amid that crisis, he concluded, colleges must retain “clear time, place, and manner rules” for protest, and when protesters violate those rules, the university must refuse to negotiate. As he warned: “If you cede ground to those who break the rules … you encourage more rule-breaking, and you betray the students and scholars who depend on this university to function.”
Marta Richards '73 P04
October 17, 2025
I am glad Eisgruber is leaving and this only solidifies my positive reaction to his impending departure. I do not have much hope for a replacement given who will be making the choice. Since Tilghman the university has been on a course of destruction of the ideas that once guided it. I’ll never forget how much the change of the motto from “Princeton in the Nation’s Service” to “Princeton in the Service of all Nations” hit me—one world thinking is something that I as a child of the 1950’s/1960’s knew was a Communist concept. I am estranged from my university but remain ever hopeful that the pendulum will swing. In the meantime, Eisgruber is on the wrong track, as usual, and only his retirement is likely to correct the course.