What does it mean to Stand Up For Princeton?

Tal Fortgang ‘17

With President Eisgruber personally leading the academic “resistance” against the Trump administration’s attack on elite universities, Princeton launched a campaign, announced in the Daily Princetonian on May 2, that “encourages alumni, faculty, students, and friends to make their voices heard in support of higher education during this challenging period.” Stand Up for Princeton and Higher Education aims to deputize a cadre of the most influential Americans – Princetonians themselves – who tend to have strong nostalgia for their alma mater, not merely to pay it forward to future Princetonians through donations but to become a kind of political force defending the university in Washington. 

Economists are fond of pointing out that once a corporation grows sufficiently large its business model shifts from increasing scale or efficiency towards lobbying. (Bill Gates famously told Mark Zuckerberg to open his DC office as soon as he could, largely for this reason.) Once a business is sufficiently entrenched, it will seek to preserve its market share by entangling itself in politics and trying to fend off competition. A version of that dynamic appears to be at play now in higher education. Princeton and its approximately $35 billion endowment are deploying an army of graduate-lobbyists to “oppose the increase to the endowment tax,” among other agenda items, showing the government that Princeton must be left untouched. Thus, the name: Stand Up For Princeton – for its ability to continue going about its business just as it has until now. 

Of course, imploring Princetonians to stand up for Old Nassau begs the question: In what way? For what elements of Princeton’s operations? Surely the government is not trying to abolish Princeton. And surely even President Eisgruber and his staunchest defenders would not contend that Princeton has handled its affairs perfectly. Should we stand up for the university even if the government has a point because Princeton has serious problems that call into question its dedication to the nation’s service?

Cleverly, the Stand Up for Princeton website indicates that these questions have occurred to whoever strategized this campaign. Scan it and you’ll see a heavy but unspoken focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) prowess. Each newsletter is full of stock photos of laboratories, computers, and smiling scientists working on some technological innovation. Part of the campaign was a webinar on “The History of Science Funding in the United States.” If you didn’t know better, you would think Princeton was a STEM school, and that the government had simply grown impatient and decided, contrary to the mantra of Animal House’s Emil Faber, that knowledge is bad.  

That’s not what is happening. Princeton, like nearly all its elite peers, considers liberal education part of its mission. STEM majors must take non-STEM classes, because Princeton believes some training in non-STEM ways of thinking makes graduates more refined individuals and better citizens – as it should. And it’s not the case that STEM completely dominates among undergraduates, either. While exact statistics are hard to come by, about half of Princeton students study in lecture halls and precept rooms before receiving a degree in the social sciences, humanities, or an interdisciplinary field. 

With its conspicuous silence regarding the importance to American citizens that some students receive a Princeton sociology education (just as an example; not to pick on my sociology-major friends), the university indicates that it knows that this is where there be dragons. It’s mostly what goes on in humanities and social science classes, in materials produced by professors in these fields, and in the behavior of those who study under them, that has led the federal government to crack down on higher education. A good liberal education is a worthwhile investment in tomorrow’s elite. But providing the future ruling class a poor liberal education – worse, an anti-liberal education – is a matter of national concern. Yet there are reasons to believe that Princetonians are being cultivated to advance anti-Westernism, if not en masse at least in numbers disproportionate to the American population. Students flying Hezbollah flags on campus is one concerning sign. “Protestors” yelling antisemitic slurs couched in decolonialist language is another. And the administration’s complete unwillingness to enforce its rules against radical students is another sign. 

If federal money is being spent on research grants that allow Princeton to reserve its own funding for a corrosive anti-Western movement masquerading as an elite education institution, the government acts logically to threaten revoked funding unless Princeton gets its house in order.

Will Princeton do so? The Stand Up to Princeton site quietly gives away the answer to that question, as well. The only non-STEM item the effort defends from the government’s assault is “Academic freedom and free speech.” A short statement from President Eisgruber stakes the entire enterprise of higher education upon “an expansive commitment” to those principles. “Princeton’s mission of teaching, research, and service depends upon giving the members of our community broad freedom to propound controversial ideas about science, humanity, justice, ethics, and every other subject,” the statement begins, “and to express those ideas forcefully and provocatively.” In a by-now-familiar articulation, President Eisgruber avers that “Princeton’s policy on free expression provides students, faculty, and staff with ‘the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.’”

Unfortunately, those sweeping statements of principle have proved empty each time they have been tested. The latest example is not news, by now, but it bears repeating because the university’s failure to handle it properly is so galling. On April 7, anti-Israel demonstrators on campus shouted down former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. They were warned, escorted out, and then claimed credit for pulling a fire alarm to disrupt the event. It was the clearest possible violation of the university’s free-speech policy, which came after pre-reads, warnings, and even a good deal of Princetonian braying about how the government was inflating problems of campus discrimination and wrongly claiming that certain speech was disfavored based on its content. 

In response, Provost Jennifer Rexford (a computer scientist prominently featured in Stand Up For Princeton materials) sent an email reiterating that “the University does not permit anyone to disrupt another’s free expression rights, even in the name of dissent.” So the disrupters, including the student group that took credit for pulling the fire alarm, would be expelled, right? Wrong. Rexford wrote that “Going forward, attendees at University events should expect a single warning not to disrupt.” And as Princetonians for Free Speech has already lamented, none of the disruptors have been, or will be punished. So much for that sacrosanct dedication to open inquiry and learning. 

The key question Stand Up for Princeton raises lends itself to two answers. In what way should we stand up for Old Nassau? Certainly not by pretending that Princeton is perfect when it is actively violating its own stated bedrock principles. There are alternatives: Advocating for the non-politicized STEM departments to spin off from the rest of the university and reclaim the federal grants they deserve; or pushing Princeton to be worthy of our defense by enforcing its rules consistently, without fear or favor, and ensuring that its liberal arts training truly is in the nation’s service. 

Tal Fortgang ’17 is a Legal Policy Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He earned a JD from New York University School of Law.