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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.
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Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, top colleges and universities have faced an onslaught of federal attacks: slashing grant money for research, pressuring schools to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, cracking down on visas for international students, and ending graduate program sponsorship for active duty military at top schools. However, some Ivy League universities — the center of many of Trump’s ongoing attacks — have decreased messaging on the potential consequences of these federal directives.
“One thing that’s been clear is that a lot of universities have felt that publicity would bring no advantage or do them no good,” history professor David Bell GS ’91, who has been outspoken about federal actions against universities, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
As a professor who is known to dissent from progressive ideologies that are dominant at universities such as Princeton, where I’ve taught for nearly 40 years, I’m frequently asked by students for advice about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them. Some are pro-Israel, or politically and socially conservative, or religiously observant.
They fear being treated unfairly by faculty members who are hostile to their beliefs. Many are afraid of being regarded as outcasts by their more liberal or progressive peers. They worry about being excluded from academic opportunities or not treated equitably in social or other extracurricular activities. To these students I say, with regret: You’re right to worry. I’ve seen these things happen.
Universities may be tempted to treat these capabilities as inevitable improvements in education. Students will be able to consume vast amounts of information, more than ever before. But like AI writing itself, such consumption would be vast but shallow. The more interesting possibility, then, is that AI will force universities to rediscover the value of intellectual work that cannot be outsourced.
