Your Cart is Empty
March 3, 2025
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.
Excerpts from the letter:
Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible. Accordingly, I write to clarify and reaffirm the nondiscrimination obligations of schools and other entities that receive federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Education (Department). This letter explains and reiterates existing legal requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and other relevant authorities.
In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families....
Although some programs may appear neutral on their face, a closer look reveals that they are, in fact, motivated by racial considerations. And race-based decision-making, no matter the form, remains impermissible....
All educational institutions are advised to: (1) ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law; (2) cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and (3) cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race.
“Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding....
Our Special Feature this month is by PFS Founder and President Stuart Taylor Jr. “A Look at Princeton’s DEI Structure Amid Trump Trashing DEI.”
A Look at Princeton's DEI Structure Amid Trump Trashing DEI
By Stuart Taylor Jr., Princetonians for Free Speech, February 28, 2025
"Princeton Doubles Down on DEI Amid Nationwide Attacks,” the Princeton Alumni Weekly reported recently – and a few weeks later, the Trump Administration launched at warp speed a profusion of legal and rhetorical attacks on universities and their DEI programs for alleged sins against freedom of speech and for “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination.” The Administration may make major cuts of outlays to universities, and Vice President J.D. Vance and others have spoken of taxing income on university endowments.
The pressure is intense on Princeton and all other universities to have a deep and prompt review of their DEI policies, their design and effectiveness, their use of overt and covert racial and gender preferences in admissions, financial aid, faculty hiring and training, racially segregated dormitories, graduation ceremonies, and other programming.
The little-known nature and size of Princeton’s DEI -- “diversity, equity, and inclusion”-- activities appear by some estimates to be more extensive, at least in terms of numbers of DEI personnel, than at most other Ivy League schools, and much more extensive than at most larger state schools – although modest by comparison with some, such as the huge and much-remarked DEI bureaucracy at the University of Michigan.
This article will describe in some detail Princeton’s DEI activities and the effects university DEI programs have had across the nation, and will sketch the Trump Administration’s anti-DEI policies.
PFS Executive Director Angela Smith and Communications Director Kaleigh Cunningham visited campus to meet with students and faculty as well as with two associate deans of undergraduate students, Jarrett Fisher and Ian Deas. They attended the highly successful debate “Is the US/Israel Alliance A Strategic Asset for American Foreign Policy” sponsored by the student group Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) and funded by PFS and the Steamboat Institute. Watch this lively debate between Josh Hammer, a senior editor at Newsweek and Dave Smith, a stand-up comedian and host of Part of the Problem Podcast.
Top university leaders responded to the crisis of confidence in higher education. Here we highlight two Chancellors of preeminent research universities: Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt University, and Andrew D. Martin of Washington University. These leaders have big ambitions. The following article, “Universities Must Reject Creeping Politicization” was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education. And an open letter, signed by Diermeier, Martin, and their two board chairs and entitled “Higher Education is at a Crossroad” appeared as a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. See the following excerpt from the letter.
To university leadership, Board members and alumni:
American higher education is at a crossroads. Ideological forces in and outside of campuses have pulled too many universities away from the core purpose, principles and values that made them America's great engines of learning, innovation and discovery, and the envy of the world.
It is imperative that universities reaffirm and protect these core principles, strengthen their compact with the American people, and build on their unmatched capacity for teaching and innovation. They must do so not only because universities provide education that is transformative and research that improves everyday life—but also because their work is vital to American prosperity, competitiveness and national security. …
Universities Must Reject Creeping Politicization
Now is the time to return to core principles.
By Daniel Diermeier and Andrew D. Martin, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 18, 2025
By Tom Ginsburg, The University of Chicago Magazine, Winter 2025
"Freedom of expression and inquiry has been a guiding principle at the University of Chicago since its founding. In the face of challenges, the University has demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting and preserving free expression, encouraging members of the community to engage in constructive open discourse without fear of retribution. This commitment and culture of intellectual engagement have made the University a global leader in the creation of knowledge.
The University also stands out nationally as an important leader on free inquiry and expression. In 2015 the president and provost formed the Committee on Freedom of Expression, chaired by Professor Geoffrey R. Stone, JD’71. The committee’s report has had a powerful impact on the national conversation. It became known as the Chicago Principles and was adopted at more than 100 other higher education institutions, a touchstone guiding them to uphold these central values..."
On April 2 the Princeton Council on Academic Freedom (PCAF), a recently-launched faculty group with 70 members so far, is staging its inaugural event: Should Universities Engage in Politics? A Roundtable Discussion on Academic Freedom and Institutional Neutrality.
It will feature Anton Ford, philosophy professor at University of Chicago, Randall Kennedy, professor at Harvard Law School, Keith Whittington, professor at Yale Law School, and Frances Lee, politics and public affairs professor at Princeton. PCAF’s emergence at Princeton signals real momentum among faculty coming together to foster and defend academic freedom on campus. From PCAF’s statement of purpose:
We believe that the faculty should play a leading role in nurturing and safeguarding academic freedom, thereby ensuring that our colleagues may continue to conduct research and teaching in an environment that is free from fear of reprisal for positions they defend, questions they ask, or ideas they entertain.
Where intellectuals meet to think more deeply about open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in today’s colleges and universities.
A quarterly magazine published by Heterodox Academy
Check out the March 2025 issue: Discipline
DEI Must Change, But Donald Trump’s Executive Order throws the baby out with the bathwater.
John McWhorter, Persuasion, February 7, 2025 (See quote of the month below.)
More tips for being non-partisan in a partisan age
It ain’t easy, it can be exhausting, and you’re not always going to get everything right. But you have to keep trying.
By Greg Lukianoff, The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack, February 19,2025
Color-Blind Principles for Higher Education
By Thomas Powers, Law and Liberty, February 21, 2025
“The legal stance articulated by the recent Trump administration statements depends upon a set of moral-political principles that have already won the day, and that will always win the day in any open and honest context. Articulating them clearly and stating them forthrightly, to they may contribute to civil rights reform efforts, is called for both as a matter of principles and of prudence.”
John McWhorter, Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University and New York Times columnist
In combating DEI, Donald Trump is doing the right thing. In that sentence I just wrote, I almost choked writing the six final words. But it is what I believe. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and it is high time America engaged in an honest conversation about this business called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
However, the actual substance of Trump’s Executive Order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” reveals—big surprise—a smash of the knout, a coarse, unreflective bleat in the guise of statecraft. Getting DEI right while retaining the moral sophistication our nation is capable of will require actions much more specific—intelligent, even.
Make no mistake: it has been high time for a major rethink on what DEI has turned into since the pandemic, with DEI becoming a term of art for what is too often an institutionalized anti-whiteness. Under this conception, if outcomes between races aren't equal, the only possible reason can be discrimination—i.e. some kind of white malfeasance, whether intended or not—and egregious enough that rules and standards must be changed. A watchcry of adherents of this philosophy is Ibram X. Kendi’s famous quote in his massively influential How to Be an Antiracist: “When I see disparities, I see racism.”
From DEI Must Change, But Donald Trump’s Executive Order throws the baby out with the bathwater John McWhorter, Persuasion, February 7, 2025
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.
To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, Members and Friends,
Happy Giving Tuesday from PFS! We are grateful for the support we've received over the past 4 years from alumni like you and many others. As our Special Feature this month, we are proud to present the PFS 2024 Annual Report, which showcases our achievements over this year. We hope you will continue to help us grow our reach and impact during this season of giving!
