Christopher L. Eisgruber
The Atlantic
Excerpt: A few weeks ago, I welcomed Princeton’s newly arrived undergraduates to campus with what has become an annual tradition: a presidential lecture on the importance of free speech and civil discussion. This semester, I will host small seminars with first-year and transfer students to impress upon them my view that free speech is essential to the research and teaching mission of American universities.
Bill Hewitt
National Review
Excerpt: September 30 marks the publication of a new book by Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right. For those who plan to read the book that ostensibly defends the culture of free speech on campuses, it is worth reviewing the author’s abysmal record on protecting free expression.
Sena Chang
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Heritage Foundation, one of America’s most prominent right-wing think tanks, abruptly canceled a lecture at Princeton scheduled for Sept. 16, citing security concerns. The event was originally scheduled to feature Wilson Beaver, the Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Advisor for Defense Budgeting and NATO Policy, but was pulled just days before it was set to take place.
“Heritage made this decision out of an abundance of caution as it reviews its personnel security policies following the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk,” the American Whig-Cliosophic Society (Whig-Clio) said in a statement online.
Princetonians for Free Speech
The political violence that has ravaged America for too many years has now led to the horrifying assassination on September 10, on the campus of Utah Valley University, of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a champion of free speech whose attacks on the left helped win him a big following among young conservatives while infuriating many on the left. He was planning to debate all comers at the campus event, as was his custom.
By Joseph Gonzalez ‘28
On Friday, September 5th, in McCosh 28 lecture hall on Princeton’s campus, Robert Corn-Revere presented “From Anthony Comstock to South Park: America and The Culture of Free Expression,” hosted by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC). Mr. Corn-Revere was affable when caught before or after the lecture, sharing stories about his friendship with comedian/magician Penn Jillette, or the behind-the-scenes stories of working on either side of the FCC’s crusade on obscenity. Mr. Corn-Revere, now chief counsel to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), has been on the frontlines of free speech battles for four decades as a First Amendment litigator. His good-natured laugh, warm smile, and light-hearted demeanor mask a firebrand when it comes to free expression advocacy, in the spirit of a quote often attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Shane McCauley
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Watching Ketanji Brown Jackson speak in Richardson Auditorium last Wednesday, I felt an eerie sense of whiplash as the conversation shifted between heartfelt discussions of the justice’s life story and nervous allusions to a democracy on the brink of collapse.
There was no following substantive conversation about what it means for the administration to always win at the Supreme Court. There were no questions from the audience pressing on Jackson’s recent fiery dissents. The discussion eventually came to whether Jackson believes a hot dog is a sandwich.