Princetonians for Free Speech will restore freedom of speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity at Princeton University by establishing, educating and empowering a nonpartisan community of alumni to demand Princeton embrace these core values, while supporting faculty and students who join our cause.
At Princetonians for Free Speech, we envision a world where higher education fully and fearlessly embraces the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity so students will graduate as well-rounded, critical thinkers who can become the leaders of tomorrow that our country needs.
Free Speech Rankings
Move Princeton to the top 25% in the FIRE speech rankings, including improving Princeton to a “green light” rating
Reduce the current 60+% student "fear" to speak out on issues down to 25%
Strengthen support for on-campus Free Speech groups
Support student group events and initiatives that promote academic freedom and free speech
Assist in increasing membership in all groups
Make Free Speech a permanent part of Freshman orientation
Achieve greater free speech content on campus (orientation, curriculum, etc.)
Have Princeton adopt the Kalven report, or equivalent policies
Empower alumni to communicate support for free speech to the Princeton administration
We work closely with faculty and student groups supporting free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity. In September of 2022, we, along with a group of Princeton faculty and students in the Princeton Open Campus Coalition formed the Princeton Free Speech Union, the first formal group on any campus bringing together alumni, faculty, and students to support free speech. Keep reading...
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Some of the most important voices of our generation are being silenced and canceled. Answer the call to help us return academic freedom to Princeton.
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A “red light” institution has at least one red light policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.
This call for near unanimity is inconsistent both with the University’s previous divestment decisions and the University’s role as a liberal arts institution. To be a liberal arts institution, as then-President Harold Shapiro GS ’64 wrote in a 1999 article to the Princeton Alumni Weekly, the University “needs to prepare us for an independent and responsible life of choice,” give us “a capacity to make moral and political choices,” and provide us a moral education. Equating consensus with near unanimity and disposing of politically contentious petitions abandons the University’s commitment to this moral education.
The University must resolve this contradiction: Either turn away from moral education and cease to divest at all, or make divestment a component of that moral education, letting go of the notion of complete consensus.
“T-R-U-M-P.”
Neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf was answering a student’s question when she nearly used the word “trump” as a regular English verb, meaning “override” or “overcome” — but she couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence. She collapsed into her armchair, citing her inability to say “his name” out loud, and instead spelled it out, letter by letter. At the Princeton Pre-read assembly, in front of the entire Class of 2030. University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, sitting across from her, smiled and said nothing.
College competitive debate is not your classroom disagreements or high school suit-and-tie resume-building extracurricular. The Princeton Debate Panel (PDP), Princeton’s intercollegiate debate team, operates under the American Whig-Cliosophic Society (Whig-Clio). Competing with PDP involves weekend tournaments at other campuses, sometimes twice a month, late-night spars twice a week, and reading up on venture capital and other topics alien to a History major. It is time-consuming, nerdy, and fun, which makes it a hotspot for those who debate for the love of the game. Thus, on the surface, college competitive debate markets itself as a neutral ground for the free exchange of ideas and the training site for public speaking. But unfortunately, these principles can become susceptible to debaters’ pre-established views, and that is when the metric of good debating becomes a sliding scale: the more popular an argument is among judges and debaters, the less proof it needs, and the less popular it is, the more it must prove.
