PFS Top Ten

PFS recommends the following actions of Princeton University’s leadership to restore a culture of free speech, open discourse and viewpoint diversity, and to eliminate the culture of fear in expressing controversial viewpoints. A stated commitment to free expression is not sufficient to cultivate a culture of academic freedom and respect for viewpoint diversity. These recommendations are intended to put Princeton’s free speech principles and policies into practice.

1. Protect the reputation of Princeton and its commitment to diversity of viewpoint by adopting as a core principle an institutional neutrality policy such as the Kalven Report on Institutional Neutrality and/or the Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry.
2. Eliminate the use of DEI statements for faculty hiring,  promotion and funding throughout the university. As compelled speech, such statements are ideological litmus tests that incentivize insincerity as they undermine freedom of expression.
3. Develop a comprehensive program to teach all students about Princeton’s policies. These actions should include: A required freshman orientation program that explains Princeton’s commitment to freedom of expression and its policies around respectful disagreement. Such a program should not be limited to new students, but should include regular instruction throughout the year on free speech, viewpoint diversity and civil discourse for students at all levels. It should include a letter to all incoming students devoted to describing the intellectual community they will be joining -- one that embraces freedom of thought, enquiry and expression, and one that protects the right of protest while making clear that right of protest does not include the right to harass, bully, threaten or prevent anyone from participating fully in campus life. 
4. Support faculty initiatives that foster and safeguard the university’s core principles of academic freedom and enquiry. Faculty play a crucial role in upholding the university’s commitment to these principles. The Princeton Council on Academic Freedom (PCAF) provides a model that the administration should embrace. PCAF is committed to defending the academic freedom of individual faculty members whose freedoms comes under threat from any quarter, and to making academic freedom itself the subject of ongoing inquiry and conversation on campus.
5. Adopt criteria to govern the appointment, retention and promotion of faculty and academic staff similar to those embodied in the University of Chicago’s Shils Report, which prioritizes academic excellence in research and teaching. These guiding principles should, using the language of the Shils Report, “be criteria which give preference above all to actual and prospective scholarly and scientific accomplishment of the highest order, actual and prospective teaching accomplishment of the highest order, and actual and prospective contribution to the intellectual quality of the University through critical stimulation of others within the University to produce work of the highest quality.”
6. Create a program to educate all administrators on the core principles guiding the university’s commitment to free expression and viewpoint diversity. These include the university’s Statement on Freedom of Expression, and its guidance on Protests and Free Expression. Administrators have an outsized and widely criticized influence on the student experience. They may lack appreciation for these principles and how they operate in practice. This means that they often act to create restrictive boundaries on what they deem to be acceptable speech. Such a program would center the university’s core principles in any administrator’s responsibility to foster a healthy campus culture. It would also provide training to Princeton’s Department of Public Safety concerning the impartial and consistent enforcement of “time, place and manner” restrictions on campus protest.
7. Work with faculty to encourage academic and administrative departments to post statements in support of freedom of expression and academic freedom that resemble the departmental statements of commitment to diversity and anti-racism.
8. Establish a free-standing Ombuds Office, dedicated to examining claims of breeches of free speech protections. The office would have expertise in First Amendment law and in the university’s academic freedom and free speech principles. It would thus be able to dismiss cases of attempted suppression of protected speech, or retaliation for protected speech, to help ensure that students and faculty are not punished for protected speech. It would also act as a resource for students, faculty and administrators who seek to understand free speech protections and their limits.
9. Reform Princeton’s anonymous reporting systems to ensure transparency, prompt notification, a right of rebuttal, and swift rejection of all complaints against First Amendment protected speech. This reform would limit review of complaints to those that are actionable discrimination and harassment. It would also prevent any accusation against students from becoming part of their permanent record.
10.  Admissions reform: In marketing, recruitment and evaluation, Princeton should reform admissions to expand viewpoint diversity and reward open inquiry. Add recruitment efforts to encourage intellectual diversity. Evaluate applications on open inquiry and constructive dialogue by, for instance, including questions to determine how an applicant would engage with a fellow student with whom they strongly disagree. Reform the decision-making process to reduce ideological bias.

Last updated September 23, 2024