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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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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.
