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Bill Hewitt '74
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: Those interested in President Eisgruber’s leadership failures should read “A Princeton President’s Evasions” by Len Gutkin in The Chronicle of Higher Education and my recent complaint filed with Princeton’s accrediting agency detailing crucial failures by Eisgruber, his administration, and Princeton’s Board of Trustees.
Len Gutkin
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: In the summer of 2020, not long after the murder of George Floyd, the faculty and the president of Princeton University engaged in an especially long-winded instance of the political ritual common to the period. The president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, went first. Given “recent tragic events” and “the ongoing reality of oppression and violence against Black Americans,” Princeton “must examine all aspects of this institution — from our scholarly work to our daily operations — with a critical eye and a bias toward action.”
In his new book, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, Eisgruber calls this letter “one of the most controversial statements” of his presidency. He goes on: “I would myself frame some of it differently if I were writing today.”
Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: With the release of his latest book 12 years into his tenure, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 says he’s not done yet. “Right now, I feel energetic,” Eisgruber said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I feel enthusiastic about the community of Princeton University and the mission of Princeton University.”
Every other Ivy League president has been replaced in the past two years, many of them forced out amid national firestorms. Columbia University has seen three presidents in a little over one year, and the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University resigned in quick succession following a December 2023 congressional hearing on antisemitism.
Isaac Barsoum
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Leftists at Princeton cheer the assassination of Charlie Kirk — at least, that’s what you would think if you’ve been reading the Opinion section of this newspaper lately. On Sept. 17, Tigers for Israel President Maximillian Meyer ’27 declared that Princeton’s progressives exhibit “a willingness to cheer violence itself.” Princeton Tory Publisher Zach Gardner ’26 didn’t go quite so far, but did say that students “treat bloodshed flippantly,” at least in the context of Kirk’s assassination.
Here’s one problem: large portions of both their arguments rest on evidence drawn from Fizz. For the uninitiated, Fizz is a campus social media app where any Princeton student can say anything at all, true or false, behind the veil of anonymity. It is remarkable that I have to say this: Fizz is not real life.
Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: About three-quarters of the way into an interview with The Daily Princetonian, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 made a bold pronouncement: “American universities are the best that they’ve ever been.”
Eisgruber has been in the business of speaking up for universities since the beginning of the Trump administration, which has put unprecedented pressure on Princeton and its peer institutions. His new book, “Terms of Respect,” argues, as the book’s subtitle reads, “how colleges get free speech right.” Despite the perception of intolerance on American college campuses, Eisgruber writes, colleges still host thriving and robust discourse.
David Montgomery '83
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: President Christopher Eisgruber ’83’s new book about free speech and dissent on college campuses is hitting bookstores this fall, shortly ahead of the 10th anniversary of the student takeover of his office in Nassau Hall to demand racial justice, and it comes just as President Donald Trump and conservative critics assail universities as woke bastions of progressive intolerance and antisemitism that must reform or forfeit federal support.
In a recent interview with PAW, Eisgruber uses his sometimes besieged perch between the fiery young activists to his left and the culturally aggrieved cadres on his right to sketch the contours of a healthy free speech environment that can accommodate both.
