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A topic of recent debate in the media and on college campuses is the Pentagon’s decision to sever ties with several Ivy League and elite universities. This includes Princeton University. This move follows Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s characterization of these institutions as “ Woke Breeding Grounds.” The goal is not to prevent these men and women from attending college but instead to direct them towards institutions more ideologically aligned with the viewpoints of the current administration. While this is the administration's prerogative, as someone who has served in both the Marine Corps and the Army as an infantryman, and am now a Princeton student myself, I am skeptical about this move.
Active-duty military members should not be barred from educational choices if given the opportunity, especially at a time when attending college can determine your future, and where you have gone to school matters. It is also a blow aimed at the wrong people.
Every so often, the complexities of the world break through the orange bubble that is Princeton University. There are occasional reminders of the world outside, like the pro-Ukraine flag-waving event outside FitzRandolph Gate, reminding us that a major conflict in Europe is still ongoing four years later. Even as a veteran, it still feels like something happening in a remote place. It was only when I attended the European Cultural Studies (ECS) Faber Colloquium, a requirement for the European Studies minor I am pursuing, that I reflected on Europe’s significance and the debt Princeton as an institution owes to Europe, from its architecture to its precept system.
In the recently published piece, The Next Campus Battle after Free Speech: Viewpoint Diversity at America’s Elite Universities, Edward Yingling ’70 and Leslie Spencer ’79 offer three “green shoots” to the ideological monolith that is America’s elite universities: civics centers, faculty reform, and the banning of diversity statements. I would like to offer a student perspective on these proposals. In my view, these reforms vary widely in their practical viability. Student civic programs offer the most promising path toward intellectual renewal, faculty reform appears the least promising, and hiring reforms, particularly the elimination of diversity statements, serve as a necessary precondition for genuine intellectual honesty.
Free speech and open inquiry are not abstract ideals – they are the lifeblood of a healthy university community. At Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), we strive to advance those principles through practical, tangible support for students and faculty who put them into action.
As such, we are pleased to tell you about two recent events at Princeton, supported by PFS that reflect this mission in powerful ways.
RocaNews is one of those new platforms growing by the seemingly simple acts of building trust and conducting on-the-ground reporting in the places the New York Times promised to do. They believe their readers are smart enough to form their own opinions. At least that was being claimed on February 19th in McCosh Hall at an event entitled RocaNews, Non-Partisan Reporting, and the Fight against Legacy Media organized by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC). RocaNews currently has 2 million instagram followers, 651,000 YouTube subscribers, and a daily newsletter sent to over 200,000 subscribers. If that growth is not enough to convince you that they are doing something right, you can see for yourself through a myriad of ways, all focused on ease of access and user experience. Roca uses Instagram and newsletters to build a go-to news community based on factual, on-the-ground reporting.
On Friday, January 23, 2026, several students from Princeton University marched to the top of Capitol Hill, joining tens of thousands of Americans in the National March for Life. Originating just months after the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade (1973), the National March for Life inaugurated the first major public conversation on the sanctity of life and a constitutional protection of the unborn. Today, four years after the overturn of Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the march still serves as a platform for individuals to express their hopes and visions for the future of the Pro-Life movement.
Having experienced the tangible and transformative power of free speech evident in the march, four Princeton students have graciously agreed to share thoughts both about their participation in the march and also about the overall experience with pro-life dialogue on campus.
