Your Cart is Empty
In a few minutes, all of you will walk out of this stadium as newly minted graduates of this University. Before you do, however, long-standing tradition permits the University president to offer a few remarks about the path that lies ahead.
In having a truly diverse group of students share their perspectives, Princeton makes known that there exists a home for every viewpoint. However, as much as I believe this claim to be true, there are unfortunately those who do not. It is easy to dismiss the Princeton administration and culture as entirely polarizing and ideologically biased. In fact, it is true that many here hold the same dominant perspective . But to focus on this fact alone, to rest our entire judgement on one such observation, runs the dangerous risk of neglecting the clear and persistent efforts of this University to encourage every student—even the conservative ones—to share the beliefs that he or she so earnestly pursues.
Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) today announced a landmark achievement: its email subscriber list has officially surpassed 26,000 verified subscribers, approximately 80% of which are alumni, representing one of the most significant milestones in the organization's history since its founding in late 2020. This high number represents a highly engaged network of supporters committed to preserving the fundamental value of free speech at Princeton.
On a rainy March afternoon, a half-filled lecture hall in the basement of East Pyne became an unlikely forum for questions about teaching and something much larger: fear, not just about what can be said in the classroom and on campus, but how it can be perceived in the public eye.
At an American Association of University Professors (AAUP) event on political pressure and faculty governance led by Joan W. Scott, a professor emerita of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a Princeton professor of African American studies, the two situated the campus climate as increasingly shaped not only by internal debates over speech, but by growing federal government scrutiny and political intervention.
On April 11, 2025, the president of Yale, Maurie McInnis, convened a Committee on Trust in Higher Education. On April 10, 2026, the ten tenured faculty members on the committee submitted their report—unanimously. Detailed and running to fifty-six pages, it is a model of clarity.
There is much to admire in the report, and I will not stint on praise. But in addition to the appropriately strong words about many things that plague America’s colleges and universities, there is also a lack of strong words about other highly relevant things that Americans care and fight about. For example, the committee skirts around the dreaded trio of diversity, equity, and inclusion and does not mention the current U.S. president by name. I will have more to say on this subject, as well as on the need for the committee’s strong words to be followed by strong actions.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. For years, the core argument of Princetonians for Free Speech was treated by university administrators as a provocation rather than a diagnosis. The claim that American higher education had drifted from its foundational mission, that a culture of ideological conformity and administrative overreach had corroded the open inquiry that justifies the university’s privileged place in democratic life, was dismissed as politically motivated, answered with defensive boilerplate, or simply ignored. That era appears to be ending. No dramatic reversals have taken shape yet, but something significant is happening. The academy itself—the ivory tower that prides itself on being above and beyond the slings and arrows of the outside world—is beginning to acknowledge that the critics had, and have, a point.
