For the first time on a college campus, faculty, students, and alumni have created an organization to promote and defend free speech and academic freedom on their campus. The creation of the Princeton Free Speech Union was announced in a full page advertisement in the Princeton Daily this week, The Princeton Free Speech Union is a coordinating body consisting of an informal coalition of faculty, a student free speech group (the Princeton Open Campus Coalition), and Princetonians for Free Speech.
The mission statement of the Union is here.
The Union's website is princetonfreespeechunion.com
Lia Opperman
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: As some universities scrub diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) websites to comply with the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting diversity efforts, Princeton’s websites have largely remained up.
Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein GS ’87 returned to campus on Tuesday to discuss the war in Gaza with history professor Max Weiss. Throughout the talk, Finkelstein addressed the United States’ history with the Middle East from the early 2000s, the United Nations’ complicated history with the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the war in Gaza.
Lily Halbert-Alexander
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Amid a national decline in study of the humanities, prestigious universities are cutting their entire classics departments. As a discipline, classics may seem to fly under the radar — classics majors comprised less than one percent of Princeton’s graduating Class of 2024. But over the last few years, classics has been the subject of charged conversations tying closely back to Princeton. This has sparked fundamental questions about what to do when books known as great and inspirational are called out for inspiring dangerous political movements.