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February 29, 2024
To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, members and friends,
This month PFS turns a spotlight on the faculty movement at America’s private elite universities, and we urge President Eisgruber to endorse and lead this growing movement.
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Faculty organizing at America’s elite private universities was in the news this month: In The Fight Over Academic Freedom, The New York Times reported on the rise of faculty groups to “counter the climate of self-censorship and fear that stifles open inquiry.”
Faculty for Yale was introduced on February 13, and so far has 128 named faculty signatories. This group believes that Yale “must rededicate itself to its fundamental mission: to preserve, produce and transmit knowledge.” Columbia Academic Freedom Council launched last month, to “re-articulate and re-assert the timeless and liberal purposes, values, practices, and traditions of a university….[challenges to which] left unchecked, will further erode societal trust in our universities as centers of teaching, learning, research, and innovation.” In the aftermath of the drama surrounding Claudine Gay’s demise, Harvard’s faculty group, the Council on Academic Freedom, with over 150 named faculty members, this month released “The Freedoms of a University,” a statement of principles which it hopes will be adopted by Harvard. You can see more about the statement in the Harvard Crimson. Penn Forward’s “A Vision for a New Future of the University of Pennsylvania” has a membership of over 1,900 that includes faculty, staff, students and alumni. The leader of the pack is, not surprisingly, the University of Chicago’s new permanent entity, the The Chicago Forum, whose most recent event, on February 27, was a discussion titled “Free Speech in a Time of War.” And Dartmouth’s new Dartmouth Dialogues is especially notable for being spearheaded by its President, Sian Leah Beilock.
Which brings us to Princeton: To affirm Princeton’s commitment to the academic freedom of faculty and students, PFS sincerely hopes that Princeton’s leadership chooses to support this growing, inter-collegiate faculty movement by endorsing the Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry and by adopting the increasingly favored principle of institutional neutrality, known as the Kalven Report, which PFS reported on HERE.
An encouraging albeit rare example of a Princeton faculty member utterly unafraid to speak, see “Universities are Making Us Dumber” by Sergiu Kleinerman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics, published in Tablet Magazine on February 27, 2024.
“Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair and the Political Idols of the Age”
R.J. Snell, visiting lecturer at Princeton, editor-in-chief of Public Discourse (the journal of the Witherspoon Institute) and Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute.
March 26th, 5 pm, Robertson 002. Sponsored by PFS in partnership with Princeton’s Federalist Society student chapter.
What Free Speech Is – and What it Isn’t
The Honorable Kyle Duncan, Judge, US Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, in conversation with Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
March 19th, Bowen Hall 222, 5pm. Co-sponsored by PFS and the James Madison Program’s Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry and Expression.
We welcome Anuj Krishnan ‘27 to the PFS team! Anuj is from Edmonton, Canada and is pursuing a major in the School of Public and International Affairs with minors in Italian and History. On campus, he is a member of the Princeton Debate Panel, Hindu Satsangam and a U-Councillor on the Undergraduate Student Government.
DEI Metrics Should Inform Stories, Not Staff By Abigail Rabieh, The Daily Princetonian, February 14, 2024
Princeton President makes Bogus Arguments that Diversity and Academic Excellence are Compatible By Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True, February 14, 2024
Jonathan Haidt: Abolish DEI to Save Academia By John Murawski, Unherd, February 10, 2024
The Review: Rival factions vie for Yale’s soul By Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 20, 2024
Larry Summers on What Went Wrong on Campus
The Good Fight at Persuasion, with Yasha Mounk, February 24, 2024 (includes transcript)
Should Universities Adopt Institutional Neutrality?
Heterodox Academy President John Tomasi in conversation with journalist Jamie Kalven, the son of the late Harry Kalven, author of University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, Heterodox Out Loud, February 14, 2024
Economist Roland Fryer on Adversity, Race and Refusing to Conform
The Free Press, Honestly podcast with Bari Weiss, February 13, 2024
Larry Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard, Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and Director of NEC for President Obama.
"I think there is a widespread sense—and it is, I think, unfortunately, with considerable validity—that many of our leading universities have lost their way; that values that one associated as central to universities—excellence, truth, integrity, opportunity—have come to seem like secondary values relative to the pursuit of certain concepts of social justice, the veneration of certain concepts of identity, the primacy of feeling over analysis, and the elevation of subjective perspective. And that has led to clashes within universities and, more importantly, an enormous estrangement between universities and the broader society."
Larry Summers on What Went Wrong on Campus
The Good Fight podcast with Yasha Mounk, February 24, 2024
Below we juxtapose Larry Summers’ quote with a quote from President Eisgruber’s recent remarks in The Atlantic.
"A noxious and surprisingly commonplace myth has taken hold in recent years, alleging that elite universities have pursued diversity at the expense of scholarly excellence. Much the reverse is true: Efforts to grow and embrace diversity at America’s great research universities have made them better than ever. . . . But like most reactionary myths, hand-wringing about modern universities also trades upon dewy-eyed nostalgia from smart, decent people who ought to know better. In December, for example, Fareed Zakaria released a six-minute video lamenting that American universities, once regarded with “admiration and envy,” were “neglecting a core focus on excellence” because they cared too much about “diversity and inclusion.” Peggy Noonan praised Zakaria lavishly in The Wall Street Journal and gushed about a lost era when “regular people” idealized universities as places filled with “rows of gleaming books, learned professors, an air of honest inquiry. Perhaps Noonan and Zakaria have never seen Animal House—or, for that matter, Oppenheimer."
Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber ‘83, The Atlantic, February 13, 2024
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To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, Members and Friends,
In February the Trump administration’s focus on radical change in higher education continued unabated. The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights released a letter on non-discrimination policies. DEI programs are targeted, with sweeping mandates that have caused several universities to take preemptive action to avoid federal funding cuts.
To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, Members and Friends,
Whoa. January certainly was a month of explosive change for higher education! Three executive orders that could impact funding of universities prompted President Eisgruber’s January 28 letter, which rightly admits “there is much we do not know.” See the Daily Princetonians coverage of Eisgruber’s letter: Eisgruber says U. is “exploring measures” in wake of Trump orders, stops short of specific guidance.
Most importantly, take a close look at our special feature, written by PFS cofounder Ed Yingling, 2025: A Breakthrough Year for Free Speech on Campus. It is a grand synthesis of the many ways 2025 could be a year of dramatic change at US Universities, change that could critically impact free speech, academic freedom and viewpoint diversity at Princeton and elsewhere. Yingling’s article helps to make sense of the radical changes that lie in store.
To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, Members and Friends,
Happy New Year! At PFS we are delighted to welcome our inaugural Executive Director; you can see below our introduction to Angela Smith. Our Special Feature includes two original articles by our PFS student writing fellows Marisa Hirschfield ‘27 and Khoa Sands ‘26. And nationally, we feature an event of particular importance to anyone interested in the state of academic freedom and free speech on America’s college campuses, held by the University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression. It is presented virtually as well as in person on January 31, 2025, and features Princeton professor and New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci. See below for details.
And PFS momentum is building! As 2024 came to a close, over 1,200 hundred new subscribers signed up with PFS. Please help to build awareness by asking your alumni and other friends to join us HERE. And for those who may have missed it, here is our 2024 Annual Report.
