Institutional Governance & Accountability

Sergiu Klainerman
Tablet

Excerpt: In the wake of Harvard, Penn, and MIT’s congressional testimony debacle, followed by the plagiarizing travails of Harvard’s President Claudine Gay and her reluctant and ungracious resignation, it is broadly recognized that America’s elite universities are afflicted by a rapidly metastasizing cancer. Harvard, our oldest and most admired university, is now the poster child for this terrible affliction.

Specific measures to improve our campuses include reviving free speech, institutional neutrality, viewpoint diversity, and individual merit as the only admissible criteria of selection for hiring and promotion. Such reforms are all self-evident within the framework of the traditional telos of the university, which prizes uncompromising dedication to truth and the pursuit of wisdom. If these ideas are controversial at all, it is only because the old telos has been eroded by new demands made in the name of social justice.

Francesca Block, Princeton 2022, PFS Board Member
The Free Press

Excerpt: Free speech is the bedrock of a free society—essential for scientific progress, artistic expression, social justice, and democracy. But we live in an era in which free speech is seen as political. Where the very notion of hearing ideas from people you disagree with is viewed as suspect or even morally wrong.

Our campus culture today says it’s okay to shut down viewpoints you disagree with. There are the obvious ways this happens—through campaigns to disinvite controversial figures from campus or shout them down once they are there. But there are more subtle ways, too. There’s the unspoken, but very real, pressure in class to not question the information being presented, or to shy away from speaking up and offering a different perspective out of fear of being judged harshly by your peers.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: The article below, by the President of Princeton, just appeared in the Atlantic.  (Christopher Eisgruber has been Princeton’s President for 11 years.)  The title clearly implies that college diversity (and the implication is “racial diversity”) is not at all in conflict with excellence

It’s hard to imagine how the Atlantic could accept an article whose arguments are explained by the conflation of causation with correlation, as well as with cherry-picked examples or recent trends in grade inflation and selectivity. But let’s look at the argument.

Abigail Rabieh
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The Daily Princetonian released its 2023 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) report last week, which publicly shares internal statistics on staffers’ identities, feelings of inclusion within the ‘Prince’ community, and satisfaction with the extent of ‘Prince’ coverage.

This report, which includes a multitude of analyses on the problems the ‘Prince’ faces and goals for improvement, could be read as suggesting that the utmost priority of internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts is to increase the diversity of staffers. This would be a poor takeaway from an interesting and insightful report, and leave the paper open to common criticisms that shallow DEI programs face.

Christie Davis
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt:  Student-led sociopolitical dissent is an enduring asset of the American university. Since the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023, on-campus demonstrations have recognizably spiked.

Some even argue that Princeton University is responsible for answering inquiries on its positions regarding national and global events to continuously support marginalized voices. While this goal is undeniably noble, a reexamination of the Kalven Report and recent restrictive legislation levied towards Florida universities serves as a necessary reminder that we at Princeton shouldn’t overlook the power of institutional neutrality to preserve campus discussions of diversity and equity.

Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, FIRE

Excerpt: We stand together in sending this entreaty to college and university trustees and regents across the country during this time of growing national concern about the fate and security of free thought on campuses.

It is time for those entrusted with ultimate oversight authority for your institutions to restore truth-seeking as the primary mission of higher education by adopting a policy of institutional neutrality on social and political issues that do not concern core academic matters or institutional operations.