Viewpoint Diversity at Princeton

Donald A. Downs
Academe Blog

Excerpt: In late August, John Wilson posted a critique of the recently published Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry. I have long respected Wilson’s views on higher education. In this case, however, I find his critiques misplaced. The Principles’ authors had two main objectives: garnering support for the Principles by individuals and institutions and engendering a broader debate on reform. I welcome Wilson’s critique as a catalyst in this debate.

On August 29, Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke alongside Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber at a mandatory freshman-orientation event ostensibly meant to highlight the university’s commitment to freedom of speech and academic freedom. More than 1,000 Princeton freshmen were required to attend this event as a part of their regular sequence of orientation activities; I was there as an undergraduate academic adviser for freshmen and out of my own personal curiosity.

Keith E. Whittington
Academe Blog
 
Excerpt: It is not every day that a government minister writes to an American university president demanding that a book be immediately removed “from the curriculum of any of its courses” and that the institution “conduct a thorough review of the academic materials” used in its classes. But such is the demand that Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli has issued to President Christopher Eisgruber of Princeton University.

The professor might be wise or unwise in making such an assignment, and a professor might reasonably come in for public criticism for how they design or run their classes. But criticism must stop short of interference. If a work is relevant to the subject matter of the class, it does not matter whether others regard it as offensive or wrong.

Keith E. Whittington
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: I noted last month that a Fourth Circuit panel had handed down a divided decision in Porter v. North Carolina State University. The case involved a tenured statistics professor in the college of education who was removed from the program in higher education after a number of complaints he had made about the program becoming too focused on social justice. The Porter panel denied his claim that the speech for which he was being punished was constitutionally protected.

I have now posted an article-length paper examining the competing arguments in Porter and contending that neither the majority nor the dissent approached the question in the right way. I offer an alternative approach to extending the Supreme Court's doctrine on government employee speech to the particular context of intramural speech by state university professors.

PEN America Press Release

Excerpt: PEN America said today calls to remove a book from a Princeton University syllabus and fire a professor were “highly misguided” and ”unwarranted.” The book in question, slated for inclusion in a course called ”The Healing Humanities — Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South,” critiques the state of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians.

Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s program director for Free Expression and Education, said: “If we scrubbed college campuses of any book that could cause any offense, we would be left with a fairly barren environment for academic inquiry. University education is meant to challenge minds and be a place for open exchange about global political issues, even when they are contested.”

Bill Hewitt ‘74
Tiger Roars, Substack

Excerpt: As I have noted elsewhere, the [Princeton & Slavery] Project is the “Flying Dutchman of Princeton” – a ghost ship that haunts Princeton with profound misinformation that defames Witherspoon and misleads the debate over the University’s statue honoring him.  

In her 2019 Thrive presentation, Prof. Sandweiss observed, “Now a project like ours requires scrupulous attention to accuracy.  As I told my students again and again, one mistake can make people doubt everything we’re doing.”  Why the Project erred so badly with its Witherspoon essay and why it has refused even to acknowledge – much less correct – its numerous mistakes therein are important questions for which the Princeton community deserves answers.