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Princeton’s honor system, as-is, emphasizes the responsibility of students to uphold Princeton’s commitment to academic freedom, rigor, and integrity. As the chair emerita of the Honor Committee, which handles suspected academic violations on in-class exams, I have intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the system’s fidelity to the pursuit of knowledge.
Recently, however, the Honor Committee has experienced new strains, including an uptick in cases in the last year and challenges such as generative AI, and student sentiment has recognized that its procedures need to better reflect the current challenges to academic integrity. For years, the Committee has had conversations about introducing proctors into exam rooms, to serve as another potential witness and reporter — and the time has finally come to take this step.
Four years ago, a user on a subreddit for Princeton asked, “What are some easy but interesting distribution requirement fillers for LA, SA, EM, EC? I’m basically asking for the humanities side of ‘rocks for jocks.’” This sentiment remains widespread at Princeton. During course selection periods, I often encounter inquiries on apps like Reddit or Fizz about easy classes to fulfill Princeton’s distribution requirements.
It’s time we say the quiet part out loud: many Princeton students are gaming the system. Rather than exploring the foundations and methodologies of a broad range of disciplines, they’re engineering the narrowest possible encounters with classes outside of their comfort zone and interests.
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.
In recent weeks, there has been much discussion over Harvard’s proposed grading policy, which would cap A grades at 20 percent in classes across the board. The policy also stipulates that, instead of using grade point averages for awards and prizes, Harvard would use a percentile rank. We asked our writers to share their reflections on grading at Princeton, the proposed Harvard policy, and what it all means for higher education.
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.
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.
