Free Speech at Princeton University

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.

Academic Freedom Alliance

Excerpt: The Academic Freedom Alliance urges federal agencies that fund research in STEMM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) to desist from demanding that plans to advance DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) be included in their grant proposals.

Widespread requirements for such plans in STEMM grant proposals have been implemented rapidly with far too little attention to their potential misuse, their effects on quality and integrity of funded research, and the threat they represent to academic freedom.

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.