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Princetonians for Free Speech
The political violence that has ravaged America for too many years has now led to the horrifying assassination on September 10, on the campus of Utah Valley University, of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a champion of free speech whose attacks on the left helped win him a big following among young conservatives while infuriating many on the left. He was planning to debate all comers at the campus event, as was his custom.
One might hope that such events could help radicalized Americans on both left and right to come to their senses, at a time when political violence has become epidemic, going back to and beyond the two assassination attempts on President Trump, the politically driven shooting murder in New York City in December of health care executive Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione, the shootings of House Republican Whip Steve Scalise and Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the plot to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the killings of a Minnesota state legislator and her husband, and of two Israeli Embassy staffers, and many more acts of political violence.
Trump Administration officials, understandably appalled by Charlie Kirk’s murder, reacted in ways more likely to punish hate speech than to abate the political violence it fuels. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau suggested the administration would take visas from people who celebrated Kirk’s death, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that his department was monitoring any military personnel who celebrated or mocked Mr. Kirk’s death. Overall, the administration’s response was partisan and incendiary, failing at any attempt to unite the country at this grave moment. In contrast, politicians from both parties did say the right thing, notably Republican Governor Spencer Cox, and progressive Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders.
As Kimberley Strassel ‘94 wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “many of those who have hailed Kirk’s success in creating a young conservative movement seem to miss that he did so by reaching out—not lashing out.”
Commentators such as Princeton University’s Professor Robert P. George and former Princeton professor Cornel West, *80, have added perspective.
“We are at a pivotal moment,” George said in an interview with Fox News Sunday in conversation with his close friend and political opponent.
“Charlie Kirk inspired an awful lot of young people to put their faith in discourse, in debate, in dialogue, robust but civil dialogue, trying to get at the truth of things, advancing your position but listening to the other guy’s argument. … Kirk made that his trademark. … I think a lot of college students today are wondering: ‘Does that really work? Look what happened to Charlie Kirk. Are words enough?’ ...
“And that’s what really worries me. That’s what concerns me. … I hope that we will allow ourselves, young people and older people, to be inspired by Charlie’s example of trying to resolve our differences with civil discourse, not with guns, not with hatred, but with civil discourse.”
Professor West, who maintains a decades-long close friendship with Professor George despite sharply opposing political views, responded, “I am not optimistic, but I am also not a pessimist, I am a prisoner of hope. I come from a great black people who have been hated, terrorized and randomly murdered and still decide to produce love warriors and freedom fighters for everyone.”
Their public friendship was forged in the 1990s when they co-taught a freshman seminar at Princeton. It is now widely seen as a model of civil disagreement. Their 2025 book, Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division, could not be more timely.
Their hope will face obstacles. A recent national student survey by FIRE shows a shockingly sharp increase in student acceptance of violence in response to speech among America’s college students in the last five years. Princeton student support of the use of violence is similar, according to our own recent student survey.
Kirk’s assassin should face justice. The rest of us can do little but work to advance the sort of civil discourse advocated by Professors George and West.
Princeton recently hosted the New Jersey General Assembly for a special session in the Faculty Room of Nassau Hall, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the independent legislature’s first meeting in August 1776. At the time of that inaugural session, Nassau Hall was still unravaged by the horrors of war.
Closing the doors to such historic buildings repeats the mistake made by too many universities: conflating the institution with its administration. While the University could not function without the work of its leaders and trustees, neither could it live without the flesh, blood, and spirit of its students and faculty.
Over the past year, President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted international students in a series of restrictions, citing concerns about national security. Fear has spread among international students at Princeton, where 13% of undergraduates — and 45% of grad students — come from abroad. “This is not the safe haven that it was supposed to be,” B. ’27, a Princeton student from Latin America, told PAW.
The last two years have seen a dramatic increase in the scrutiny of free speech and academic freedom on university campuses, largely in response to the protests that followed the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the Israeli invasion of Gaza. There has been important progress during this period that bolsters awareness of the importance of free speech and academic freedom principles.
However, progress on these core values will mean little if there is not a major effort to address a pressing long-term and deeply embedded problem – the almost total lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty at many universities.
