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Princetonians for Free Speech Editorial
FIRE's 2027 College Free Speech Rankings are out, and Princeton fell to 176th out of 261 schools, down from 160th out of 257 last year. Score: 58.1. Grade: F. Among Ivy League peers, Princeton lands in the middle of the pack — behind Dartmouth (6th), Harvard (71st), Yale (72nd), and Brown (98th), but ahead of Cornell (219th), Penn (227th), and Columbia (246th). The core of the FIRE rankings is a yearly student survey.
Here's the good part news: on almost every question that measures how students actually feel, Princeton does well. The university ranks 4th in the country on whether students trust the administration to protect speech and defend a speaker during controversy — a strength for six years running. It ranks 4th on political tolerance, meaning Princeton students are more willing than students nationally to let controversial speakers from either side of the aisle actually speak on campus. That's an area Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) has worked directly to support (helping student groups have controversial speakers on campus and defending their right to be heard once they're there) and it's good to see it showing up in the numbers. Self-censorship ranks 15th, and comfort expressing ideas jumped from 165th last year to 35th — one of the biggest swings in the whole national survey.
So if students feel this good about speech at Princeton, why the F? There are two problem areas, and both are easily fixable by the administration:
FIRE ran the numbers on what fixing these defects would actually do: if Princeton simply moved from "red light" to "yellow light" on its policies, it would rank 82nd instead of 176th. Add institutional neutrality on top of that, and it would rank 53rd. Fixing the policies is the single clearest lever available, and it's one Princeton's leadership can pull without touching anything about campus culture ... and one we've already handed them a roadmap for.
None of this is abstract. These rankings are used by prospective students and their families deciding where to apply, and right now Princeton's actual policies are dragging down a genuinely strong campus climate Princeton has built— and one PFS has had a hand in building.
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President Christopher L. Eisgruber introduced transfer and first-year students to the University’s expansive commitment to academic freedom and free expression during his fifth annual Orientation session on the topic.
Princeton’s austerity program is already well underway. The University calls it a transition “from growth to focus,” but it has meant 5–7 percent cuts to departmental budgets, more than 3 percent of staff positions disappearing through layoffs and unfilled vacancies, and increased employee contributions for benefits such as medical insurance. Fewer people and resources are left to support a recently expanding student body, and more reductions are coming.
In his February letter announcing this “focus,” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 emphasized Princeton’s financial strength, but pointed to lower expected long-term endowment returns, from 10.2 to 8.0 percent annually, as forcing the University’s response.
In 1985, the 17th president of Princeton University William G. Bowen GS ’58 delivered an opening exercises address that described universities as standing “at a slight angle to the world.” He noted how it was, in some ways, a historical aberration that universities in the U.S. could maintain their dissent from authority, and broadcast and house unorthodox — even outrageous, or broadly offensive — ideas.
Bowen defended this independence from political control as enhancing the quality of universities’ teaching and research. So has current University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, who has posited the idea that “great benefit” comes from allowing universities to continue operating “at a slight angle to the world.”
