Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Cory Alperstein ’78, Lynne Archibald ’87, Robert Herbst ’69, Jessie Press-Williams *23, Hannah Reynolds ’22, Ryan Warsling *21
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Every year, the Committee to Nominate Alumni Trustees calls for nominations for elections to be held in April. As alumni who care about Princeton and its place in the world, we responded. However, in the unofficial year of democracy, our experience has left us with many questions about who really runs the University.  . . . Our concerns relate . . . to the process and profound lack of transparency of the Board of Trustees and the Committee to Nominate Alumni Trustees.

By Ed Yingling '70
PFS Co-Founder

The Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS) second annual survey of Princeton students is now available. This survey provides information on student attitudes on key free speech issues. Because the survey is being done annually, comparisons can be made to see if Princeton is making progress. Unfortunately, with three important exceptions, on most issues the survey shows little or no progress from the troublesome results in the first survey. In a few cases, the results are worse than last year. Clearly Princeton still has work to do.

Watch here: https://jmp.princeton.edu/events/2024/great-minds-matter-western-civilization-and-liberal-arts-ben-sasse#event-media

Bill Hewitt
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Complicity in the wrongful shedding of blood was the theme to the disruptions of President Eisgruber’s address at Alexander Hall and recent landmark vandalisms. This raises, with apology to Florence Reece and her 1930s protest song “Which Side Are You On,” the question, “Which ‘genocide’ are you on?”  

In their zeal to be pro-Palestinian and their efforts to depict Israel’s efforts of self-defense as “genocide,” PIAD and SJP brazenly ignore Hamas’ goal and actions to annihilate Israel. Symbolically raising their red hands of protest against Israel’s actions, these PIAD and SJP protesters stand morally submerged in the blood Hamas wrongfully sheds.

David Chmielewski
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In November 2023, I wrote a letter to the editor on the importance of remembering the radical side of Princeton’s activist history and the politics of how we remember campus activism. As I wrote that letter, I could never have imagined the incredible things that current Princeton student activists would achieve just six months later with the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also known as the Popular University for Gaza.

One of our moral imperatives now is to make the memory of the encampment useful, to understand what it represented and will represent for future generations of student activists.

Emma Pettit
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Over the past several years, Republican state lawmakers have filed bill after bill meant to restrict how certain topics can be discussed in public college classrooms. A common conservative complaint — that leftist academics promote flimsy ideology rather than teach hard facts — became more than rhetoric. In some states, it became law.

But what about the First Amendment? What about academic freedom? How much control can a state really impose over professors at public colleges?