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July 1, 2024
To Princetonians for Free Speech Subscribers, members and friends,
The Princeton campus, and others, have quieted down for the summer. But the drama of recent months seems likely to resume this fall, and PFS will be keeping you posted.
PFS’s second annual survey of Princeton students, conducted by College Pulse, was released in early June. As PFS Co-Founder Ed Yingling ’70 wrote: “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.” Read More
Our very own Matthew Wilson '24 has been promoted to Programs Associate. Matthew joined our team over a year and a half ago as an undergrad, and we are excited to be working with him for another year before he heads to law school.
In other student news, Writing Fellowship applications are now open for the fall 2024 term. For instructions on how to apply, please head to our student portal.
Confidence in colleges and universities hits new lows, per FIRE polls
By Nathan Honeycutt, FIRE, June 11, 2024
Confidence in higher education has plummeted to its lowest level ever according to the results of two new national polls commissioned by FIRE and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.
Harvard’s ‘Abysmal’ Year Continues
By Samuel J. Abrams & Steven McGuire, Minding the Campus, June 17, 2024
Harvard’s year has been one for the history books. It ranked last in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s annual college free speech survey, earning its own category of “abysmal.” It had quite possibly the worst response to Hamas’s October 7th terrorist attack on Israel in all American higher education.
Bureaucracy Is Eating Higher Education. Just Look at Yale
By Lauren Noble, National Review, June 27, 2024
In the last year alone, the university added nearly three times as many bureaucrats as undergraduates and twice as many bureaucrats as educators.
‘Momentum undeniably growing’: More elite colleges look to end DEI hiring mandates
By Katlyn Anderson, The College Fix, June 26, 2024
Yale, Columbia still use DEI in hiring as other elite colleges like MIT, Harvard abandon practice.
In PFS Supports Two Student and Faculty Events that Advance Free Expression, Executive Director Angela Smith highlights PFS support for two important on-campus events that happened in February, one organized by students, the other by faculty.
“Free speech and open inquiry are not abstract ideals – they are the lifeblood of a healthy university community. At Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), we strive to advance those principles through practical, tangible support for students and faculty who put them into action. As such, we are pleased to tell you about two recent events at Princeton, supported by PFS, that reflect this mission in powerful ways.”
Read more about these events, why PFS supports them, and why you should support PFS.
And read coverage of these two events in the Student Corner below, written by our writing fellows Annabel Green ‘26 and Joseph Gonzalez ‘28.
February 2, 2026
Dear PFS Subscribers and Friends,
2026 has started with a bang. “Viewpoint diversity” is in the news. What is its role in protecting the knowledge-generating and truth-seeking mission of America’s universities? Please see our Special Feature, an original article by PFS’s Edward Yingling and Leslie Spencer, The Next Campus Battle after Free Speech: Viewpoint Diversity at America’s Elite Universities.
Also see an important new book Viewpoint Diversity: What It Is, Why We Need It, and How to Get It, forthcoming next month from Heresy Press. It is a collection of essays by some of the country’s leading heterodox thinkers who confront the rise of orthodoxy on both the left and the right.
And our Quote of the Month is from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Is a Four-Year Degree Worth It? by the President of Dartmouth Sian Leah Beilock, who makes an urgent call for university leaders to take action now to “reform ourselves.”
Happy New Year from PFS!
Dear PFS Subscribers and Friends,
We’d like to take this moment at the end of an eventful year at Princeton and throughout the country, to acknowledge two national organizations that pursue higher education reform in important and different ways, both of which are critical to PFS’s success. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), whose impact on free speech and campus discourse policies at over 30 campuses nationwide cannot be underestimated. Collaborating with FIRE on Princeton student surveys and campus reform policies has been invaluable to our growth and impact. The other is Heterodox Academy (HxA), the leading non-partisan membership organization for faculty, staff and students, whose campus community network has now reached over 80 campuses in the US and UK.
