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Editor's note: Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) held a well-attended breakfast and panel discussion at the Nassau Inn on May 28, the Sunday of Reunions. The discussion was moderated by PFS co-founder Ed Yingling and the panelists were co-founder Stuart Taylor, Treasurer Todd Rulon-Miller, Director of Outreach and Communications Kaleigh Cunningham, and graduating seniors Abigail Anthony and Myles McKnight, who are PFS board members. Topics included the precarious state of free speech at Princeton today and PFS's efforts to prevent removal of the statue of John Witherspoon, who was arguably Princeton's most important president and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, among other distinctions, because he owned two slaves which, new historical research suggests, he probably emancipated before his death.
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Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, top colleges and universities have faced an onslaught of federal attacks: slashing grant money for research, pressuring schools to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, cracking down on visas for international students, and ending graduate program sponsorship for active duty military at top schools. However, some Ivy League universities — the center of many of Trump’s ongoing attacks — have decreased messaging on the potential consequences of these federal directives.
“One thing that’s been clear is that a lot of universities have felt that publicity would bring no advantage or do them no good,” history professor David Bell GS ’91, who has been outspoken about federal actions against universities, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
As a professor who is known to dissent from progressive ideologies that are dominant at universities such as Princeton, where I’ve taught for nearly 40 years, I’m frequently asked by students for advice about how to navigate a campus they worry will be hostile to them. Some are pro-Israel, or politically and socially conservative, or religiously observant.
They fear being treated unfairly by faculty members who are hostile to their beliefs. Many are afraid of being regarded as outcasts by their more liberal or progressive peers. They worry about being excluded from academic opportunities or not treated equitably in social or other extracurricular activities. To these students I say, with regret: You’re right to worry. I’ve seen these things happen.
Universities may be tempted to treat these capabilities as inevitable improvements in education. Students will be able to consume vast amounts of information, more than ever before. But like AI writing itself, such consumption would be vast but shallow. The more interesting possibility, then, is that AI will force universities to rediscover the value of intellectual work that cannot be outsourced.
