Academic Freedom at Princeton

Thomas Catalano
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Regan Crotty ’00 will serve as Princeton’s new dean of undergraduate students, according to a University announcement made July 15. Crotty will now lead the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS), which is responsible for co-curricular and extracurricular aspects of student life.

Crotty brings to the role a decade of experience serving in various capacities at the University. After graduating from Princeton in 2000, she went on to earn her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School before returning to Princeton as an ODUS investigator, responsible for investigating alleged violations of University policy. Following that role, she was Interim Executive Director for Planning Administration in the Office of Vice President for Campus Life (VPCL) where she managed travel oversight, supervised ROTC and Outdoor Action, and represented the VPCL on various committees.

Aaron Sibarium
Washington Free Beacon

Excerpt: Princeton University is on the verge of promoting a professor who participated in the occupation of a campus building that disrupted university operations and led to more than a dozen arrests, according to an email reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The university has recommended that the classics scholar Dan-el Padilla Peralta, who along with 13 anti-Israel student protesters stormed Princeton’s historic Clio Hall in April, be promoted from associate to full professor, pending the approval of the university’s board of trustees. Peralta already has tenure, but the promotion would make him eligible for university leadership roles, including deanships.

Jess Deutsch
Princeton Alumni Weekly  

Excerpt: While 120 hostages remained captive and the death toll in Israel and Gaza continued to rise, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 described the last year as the “most turbulent and difficult on college campuses in the U.S. since the late 1960s.” With world news weighing heavily this spring and campus protests broadcasted widely, I wondered about the impact of the war and protests on the mental health impact Princeton students and alumni.

At Princeton’s encampment, students seemed to talk within their own bubbles or make statements using a megaphone. Students, faculty, and staff often walked by, heads down. As the semester was ending, more than one student who had no involvement told me they couldn’t wait to leave campus, scared to say the wrong thing. I worried about the conversations that didn’t happen.

Peter Berkowitz
RealClear Politics

Excerpt: In “How Liberal College Campuses Benefit Conservative Students,” which appeared online in early July at The Atlantic, Lauren A. Wright, in the spirit of “A Boy Named Sue,” urges “right-wing commentators” to appreciate the benefits of a campus environment that ridicules, condemns, and excludes conservative views.

Wright’s contrarian contention that the politicization of higher education advantages conservatives while harming progressives puts the controversy over the nation’s campuses in an unexpected light. No doubt some conservative students do rise to the occasion. In the face of their professors’ and fellow students’ knee-jerk hostility to conservative opinions, some students who hold them will develop thick skins, acquire the ability to appreciate the other side’s arguments, and improve their skills in fending off denunciation and diatribe and setting forth their own views under pressure. But most students – at Princeton, according to Wright, “conservatives make up just 12 percent of undergraduates” – are imbued with the progressive orthodoxy promulgated by much K-12 education, public and private.

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: An anonymous male student is suing the Trustees of Princeton University for breach of contract, violations of Title IX, and negligence. According to the lawsuit, “John Doe” began studying at Princeton University in 2022 and was suspended after the disciplinary proceedings that followed from two women filing separate charges of choking accusations.

Academic Freedom Alliance Press Release

Excerpt: The Academic Freedom Alliance today announced the favorable resolution of its case in defense of John Strauss, a professor at the University of Southern California who was accused of harassment by student protestors after he briefly engaged with them at a pro-Palestinian rally on campus. USC dismissed the case against Professor Strauss earlier this month.