Oct. 6 Webinar: What Princeton's Faculty Political Donations Reveal About Viewpoint Diversity
Join us on October 6 at noon ET for a look at our new study of Princeton faculty political donations. It's the first of its kind at Princeton. Of the faculty who made a federal donation in the 2023-24 cycle, 98% gave to Democrats, 2% gave to independents, and none gave to Republicans. That doesn't mean Princeton has no conservative or independent faculty, but it does show how narrow the range of views is on campus.
We'll walk through the findings, compare them with similar studies at Yale and Harvard, and talk about what this lack of viewpoint diversity means for teaching, research, and open debate. We'll also discuss why Princeton's leadership has not addressed the issue, while leaders at peer schools have. Register today!
What the Cornell Report Gets Right about the Purpose of the University
Universities seeking to rebuild public trust would do well to follow Cornell’s lead.
By Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, Inside Higher Ed, Sept. 25
A second Ivy League university hasjust published a major report that calls on higher ed to reflect on its shortcomings and think about major reform.The report from Cornell University’s Committee on the Future of the American University will hopefully turn the page on the argument about whether higher ed should “resist” criticism or engage with it. The more interesting question is about where today’s universities have gone astray and how to correct course.
Heterodox Academy Congratulates Cornell After Major Report Calls for Higher Ed Reform
Heterodox Academy, Sept. 22
"Cornell has asked what a university is for, and its answer is to form people capable of sound judgment," said John Tomasi, President of Heterodox Academy. "The report's idea of academic civics treats everyone on campus as a citizen of an intellectual community, with obligations to one another and to the truth. That ambitious vision can't be realized without open inquiry."
Vanderbilt’s Chancellor Publicly Criticizes the Sector but Talks Quietly With the White House
By Eric Kelderman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 21
Daniel Diermeier has become one of the most visible college leaders. The chancellor of Vanderbilt University joined a panel Thursday in Washington, D.C., to make his case for rebuilding public trust — by taking politics out of research and the classroom, and restraining institutions from issuing statements on matters not directly related to their mission or operations.
Too many faculty are working in disciplinary echo chambers.
Here’s how we can start to break out.
By Nicole Barbaro Simovski, Free the Inquiry, Sept. 14
Imagine being a faculty member on a university campus. Your job is to discover, produce, and disseminate knowledge. Now also imagine that you have no regular interactions with colleagues in which you have substantial disagreement about your area of scholarship and teaching. ...
Yet, for nearly 30% of U.S. university faculty, this is the reality. In a newsurvey, Heterodox Academy, in partnership with National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, asked over 3,500 faculty how many colleagues they regularly engage with who disagree with them on important scholarly matters. Twenty-nine percent of them said the answer was zero — zero. For faculty who are on contingent or adjunct teaching contracts, this number is 41 percent.
Faculty Hiring Has Problems. That’s Nothing New.
An almost forgotten 1970s report from the University of Chicago remains relevant.
By Dean Saitta, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 14
When it comes to theories of institutional neutrality and free expression, two of the pillars of the “Chicago Trifecta” — the 1967 Kalven Report and the 2014 Chicago Principles — are well known. But the third, the so-called Shils Report (named after its primary author, the sociologist Edward Shils), has been given much less attention in recent years. That’s too bad, because the report’s recommendations are especially germane in the current moment of disciplinary self-reflection and soul-searching.
The Race to Scientific Mediocrity
AI is making scientists more productive. That’s the problem.
By J. Scott Turner, Minding the Campus, Sept. 14
"Let Facts Be Submitted To A Candid World”: Celebrating Constitution Day with Yale Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar
By Abigail Readlinger ‘27, September 28
As Princetonians, our history is inextricably linked with that of the Founding. In honor of both these legacies, we are compelled to pursue our own ideas with honesty and vigor, while also receiving the ideas of others with humility and grace. The Declaration says it best as it proclaims, “Let facts be submitted to a candid world.” I can only hope that we, in this town, may be part of that world.
Muscle Atrophy: A Chinese International Student’s Reflection on Self-Censorship
By Elaine Gao ‘28, September 22
Free speech is usually described as a right one either has or does not have, relative to the laws of one’s residence. But a right, like a muscle, is only as strong as its use. When my family flew to the United States in 2018, I naively thought that I had escaped the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) systematic suppression of free speech. I believed that I would access Google, YouTube, and Winnie the Pooh without any need for a VPN to circumvent the “Great Firewall of China,” a term used to describe the CCP’s firm control on online content. But I was clueless: I unknowingly carried a part of the repression within me.
Podcast of the Month
Breaking down our 2027 College Free Speech Rankings | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, Sept. 11
Note: Princeton ranks 176 out of 261 schools in the 2027 rankings, down 16 points from 2025. It earned a score of 58 and an F speech climate grade. Here are links to FIRE’s 2027 Free Speech Rankings and FIRE’s analysis of Princeton.
Quote of the Month
Roland Fryer, Professor of Economics at Harvard and founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures and Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management
By Roland Fryer and Bill Ackman, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 7
…The prize awards $1 million each to as many as five social scientists a year who have demonstrated intellectual independence, published findings that were attacked rather than answered, and been validated by the evidence—despite the professional cost. The selection criteria are designed to distinguish courage from contrarianism: Nominees must show a sustained commitment to following logic and evidence regardless of pressure, a willingness to ask questions others avoid, and work that has shifted academic debate, public discourse or policy—often despite being misread, mischaracterized or vilified at the time of publication.
…
We have tried to make this structurally resistant to capture from either direction. The selection committee spans the ideological spectrum. Members include the Harvard economist and Nobel laureate Eric Maskin, the Johns Hopkins sociologist Stefanie DeLuca and the Brown University economist Glenn Loury. Many of them have paid a professional price of their own for following evidence to uncomfortable places. They don’t share politics. They share an epistemology: that a finding isn’t made wrong by being unwelcome and isn’t made right by being convenient. Mr. Fryer chairs the committee; no one on it is eligible for the prize, and Mr. Ackman, who funds it, has no vote on winners. A prize that requires consensus among people who disagree about nearly everything is harder to pull toward any one agenda than a prize administered by allies. We view this as a feature, not a complication.
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