Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Editor's note: Below is an excerpt of and link to an important statement issued by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition, the student free speech group at Princeton University.

Princeton University contributes to society through truth seeking, a pursuit necessitating academic freedom and institutional neutrality. Yet recent discussion of an upcoming Princeton course has prompted us, as leaders of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC), to reiterate the truth-seeking mission and how it functions on Princeton’s campus.

Benjamin Woodard, Rebecca Roth, Danielle Shapiro, and Marie Riddle
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Princeton University contributes to society through truth seeking: a pursuit necessitating academic freedom and institutional neutrality. Yet recent discussion of an upcoming Princeton course has prompted us, as leaders of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC), to reiterate the truth-seeking mission and how it functions on campus.

Consequently, Larson is entitled to teach whatever books and topics she wants in her course, so long as students can form their own educated assessments of the material. This is true even if her choices are unpopular amongst students, governments, or other organizations.

Guest Contributors
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In light of the right-wing Zionist attacks on Professor Satyel Larson’s plans to teach Dr. Jasbir Puar’s “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability” in NES 301, we, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with Professor Larson, whose teaching and scholarship we value and admire greatly.

We are deeply troubled by the attempt to censor Professor Larson, ban Puar’s book, limit intellectual inquiry, and silence faculty-student exchange within and beyond the classroom, particularly on issues of such political, moral, and philosophical significance.

[Please refer to the article to see the signatures under the open letter].

Bill Hewitt ‘74
Tiger Roars, Substack

Excerpt: As I have noted elsewhere, the [Princeton & Slavery] Project is the “Flying Dutchman of Princeton” – a ghost ship that haunts Princeton with profound misinformation that defames Witherspoon and misleads the debate over the University’s statue honoring him.  

In her 2019 Thrive presentation, Prof. Sandweiss observed, “Now a project like ours requires scrupulous attention to accuracy.  As I told my students again and again, one mistake can make people doubt everything we’re doing.”  Why the Project erred so badly with its Witherspoon essay and why it has refused even to acknowledge – much less correct – its numerous mistakes therein are important questions for which the Princeton community deserves answers.

Rebecca Cunningham
Daily Princetonian

A course offered by Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern studies (NES) has come under sustained criticism from off-campus publications and public figures in recent weeks due to the inclusion of the book, “The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability” on the course’s syllabus. A description of the book describes it as arguing that Israel “relies on liberal frameworks of disability to obscure and enable the mass debilitation of Palestinian bodies.”

Critics, including a minister in the Israeli government, have argued that the book invokes the antisemitic blood libel trope, while others have defended the use of the book on grounds of academic freedom and human rights.

Excerpt: Last Wednesday, in the wake of a report that Princeton University will include a book in its syllabus that claims that the IDF had been harvesting Palestinian organs, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli wrote a letter to the university’s senior leadership, Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber and Dean of Faculty, Professor Gene A. Jarrett.
“I am writing to you as Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, which entails the responsibility of fighting incitement and bigotry against the Jewish People and the State of Israel,” Chikli prefaced the letter.