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by Matthew Wilson '24, Daily Princetonian
On April 22, the Daily Princetonian released the results of its highly anticipated annual Senior Survey.
This year’s Senior Survey simply captures a snapshot of Princeton’s marred free speech culture. Those looking for the cause of the decay can find some answers in the many institutional failures that have taken place during my three years here: an accomplished professor’s highly politicized firing; a prominent dean’s flagrant disregard for institutional neutrality in order to preach her hyper-partisan views on a controversial jury trial; freshman orientation programming explicitly condemning real freedom of speech; and dangerous bias-reporting systems that encourage self-censorship and speech policing. Why have anti-speech attitudes taken hold here? The embarrassing behavior of our administrators makes the reason painfully clear.
Princetonians for Free Speech
Since the beginning of the year, Princetonians for Free Speech has been warning that Princeton and other universities were likely to be hit with a big increase in the current 1.4 % tax on endowment income. Now it is happening.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, the House Ways & Means Committee voted to report out its part of the Reconciliation bill – a.k.a. the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This massive bill contains numerous tax provisions, including a large increase in the tax rate, now 1.4%, on endowment income. The bill creates a tiered tax rate based on an institution’s “student-adjusted” endowment. There are four rates: 1.4%, 7%, 14%, and 21%. The 21% rate applies to schools with an endowment of at least $2 million per student. It is the same as the corporate tax rate. Princeton qualifies for the 21%. According to one article, others qualifying for the highest rate are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT. Here is a list of the largest endowments. Princeton is listed at $34 billion. Note that Texas, which has a large endowment, is not covered by the endowment tax because it is a public university.
Christopher Bao and Annie Rupertus
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Princeton asked all departments and University units to prepare “separate plans for 5 percent and 10 percent permanent budget cuts to be phased in over the next three years, with some actions to start later this summer” in an email sent to faculty and staff on Monday afternoon — the University’s most dramatic budgetary guidance yet following a tumultuous semester for higher education.
The email, sent by Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, explicitly acknowledged the potential for layoffs to be part of budget reductions. “Cuts of this magnitude to our budget cannot be achieved without changes to some operations and the associated elimination of some staff positions,” they wrote.
David Montgomery ‘83
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: For the first time in memory, Princeton is inviting alumni, faculty, students, and allies to lend their voices to a broad campaign of political advocacy and public affirmation in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on research funding and academic freedom in American higher education. “To my knowledge, this is a new kind of initiative for the University,” President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 told PAW in an early May interview about the campaign, which is called “Stand Up for Princeton and Higher Education.”
