By Edward Yingling and Stuart Taylor Jr
Originally published in Real Clear Politics
In July 2020, a Princeton University professor, Joshua Katz, wrote an article containing provocative language that generated controversy on campus.
by George F. Will
Squalls of indignation gust across campuses so frequently that they seem merely performative — synthetic, perfunctory, uninteresting. Princeton’s current contretemps, however, fascinatingly illustrates how wokeness, which lacks limiting principles, limits opposition to itself.
by Eleanor Clemans-Cope, The Daily Princetonian
George F. Will GS ’68 recently took to the pages of the Washington Post, where he is a regular columnist, to announce to the world that wokeness at Princeton is destroying free speech.
The Trump administration is expanding its efforts to dismantle the Education Department by moving its oversight of school safety grants and foreign funding for universities to other agencies, the administration announced Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services is slated to take over work related to school shootings and student mental health programs. The State Department will be tasked to help the Education Department manage how the federal government monitors the flow of billions of dollars in foreign gifts and contracts to higher education institutions.
The Department of Justice filed a new lawsuit against Harvard University, accusing it of failing to hand over documents and comply with a federal investigation into alleged racial discrimination in its admissions process, in the latest escalation of Donald Trump’s long-running legal pursuit of the nation’s oldest university.
Harvard stressed in a statement that it was responding to inquiries “in good faith” and prepared to engage “according to the process required by law”.
If you combined two of Princeton’s three most popular A.B. majors — SPIA and Politics — you could nearly fill McCosh 50. With so many students taking courses about politics and policy, one might expect the American Whig-Cliosophic Society senate — the Society’s home of parliamentary-style debate — to be a vibrant center of debate on campus. Yet the benches of the senate chamber frequently lie empty.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced more than $75 million in awards, including $10 million grants to two public universities with “civics” schools and to an education network headquartered at a conservative think tank.
The $10 million going to the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education is for a project dubbed Recovering the Humanities in Service of the University. Kelly Hanlon, FEHE’s operations director, said the foundation “does not have any political, ideological or religious affiliation, nor does it fund policy work.” But FEHE is based at—and shares its president with—the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think tank next to Princeton University’s campus.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon told a conservative news outlet she wants to focus less on higher ed this year. The comment comes after the Trump administration’s yearlong use of multiple federal departments to pressure universities and their employees and students to conform to the White House’s desires.
McMahon discussed her 2026 priorities in an interview with Breitbart before Christmas. As the outlet put it, “McMahon said the new year is a chance to shift a little bit away from higher education and focus on elementary and secondary.”
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On Jan. 2, the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life released a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding a new University policy regulating audio and visual recording. The policy classifies any recording made at events deemed private — where not all participants have consented — as “secret or covert,” placing such recordings in violation of University rules.
However, recording at public events, such as advertised public speaker events, is permitted unless the speaker, performer, or party hosting the event explicitly states otherwise. “The policy does not cover meetings open to all current members of the resident University community or to the public,” according to the FAQ website.
Last month’s issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) fawns over Michael Park ’98, a right-wing lawyer and, since 2018, a U.S. circuit judge. Park’s portrait commands the cover, while the accompanying long-form profile, titled “The Contender,” speculates that he could become Donald Trump’s next nominee to the Supreme Court. The author is P.G. Sittenfeld ’07.
But Sittenfeld is not just any old journalist. Last May, President Donald Trump pardoned Sittenfeld, a one-time rising star in Cincinnati politics, following his conviction on federal bribery and extortion charges in 2022. Sittenfeld, a Democrat, owes his freedom to Trump — the man who nominated his subject Park to his judgeship, and the man with the power to elevate Park further to the nation’s highest court. Nowhere does PAW disclose this striking conflict of interest.
Researchers at Princeton and across the nation who receive federal funding have had a tumultuous year. Come Wednesday, they have one more thing to balance: a new federal public access policy that could cost researchers thousands of dollars more to publish in academic journals.
The new public access policy, known as the Nelson Memo, was released under the Biden administration in 2022 and mandates that any research that is funded by federal agencies be made publicly available at the time of publication.
Enzo Baldanza
Princeton Tory
Excerpt: We hear it all the time: we live in the age of disinformation. Social media users all contain biases and omit/distort truths that make it difficult to know who and what to trust. Our commitment to the right of free expression exacerbates this problem by hindering potential attempts at regulation.
However, free speech boasts an interesting duality as both a solute and a solvent. If free speech can be used to spread disinformation, then it can be used to spread truth as well: counteracting disinformation by using your platform to clarify and promote the whole truth is an ability in all of our wheelhouses.
Teresa Chen and Oliver Wu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Thai pro-democracy figures Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and Kunthida Rungruengkiat GS spoke on Wednesday at the U.S. premiere of “Breaking the Cycle,” a documentary on the rise and suppression of Thailand’s modern reform movement.
The event was hosted by Thaigers, the Thai Students’ Association on campus and sponsored by the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination. Directed by Aekaphong Saransate and Thankrit Duangmaneeporn, “Breaking the Cycle” traces the ascent of the pro-democracy Future Forward Party (FFP) and its founder Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit from the 2019 Thailand election through subsequent court-ordered dissolutions of both FFP and its successor, Move Forward.
Rodrigo Menezes
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Recently, Princeton University announced a policy that would require members of eating clubs and co-ops living in University housing to buy a second meal plan, costing about $900 a year. I, along with all the other members of the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC), believe that this policy would be disastrous for Princeton’s undergraduate experience.
Oliver Wu and Vitus Larrieu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In September, Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering rebranded its diversity, equity and inclusion committee as the “Office of Culture and Belonging,” while their School of Medicine abruptly shuttered its DEI program. Harvard has pared down its diversity offerings under direct pressure from the Trump administration, most recently canceling an over 50-year-old program that encouraged minority students to apply to the university.
Megan McArdle
Washington Post
Excerpt: As the Trump administration’s war on universities settles into its entrenched phase, it’s given new urgency to a long-simmering debate about whether, and how, academia should pursue viewpoint diversity. This conversation has been happening for decades, mostly between conservatives who want more of it and an academic establishment that wants to leave well enough alone. Now, that conversation has become existential.
Bill Hewitt
National Review
Excerpt: September 30 marks the publication of a new book by Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right. For those who plan to read the book that ostensibly defends the culture of free speech on campuses, it is worth reviewing the author’s abysmal record on protecting free expression.
Christofer Robles
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: The Trump administration and its lackeys have used the recent assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk to hide its own suppression of free speech. But conservatives, nationally and at Princeton, are crying wolf.
The death of Kirk is not symptomatic of some leftist guerrilla psyop. American political violence has long been a tool of the right, and the attempt to pin Kirk’s assassination on the left is symptomatic of the real free speech problem at Princeton: dishonesty. Members of the campus right have misrepresented the status of free speech on campus, drawing on a few isolated incidents to paint themselves as the real victims in the debate.
Paul Du Quenoy
Tablet Magazine
Excerpt: Endlessly self-congratulatory, insufferably pedantic, irritatingly repetitive, and self-referential nearly to the point of parody, Eisgruber argues that our system of higher education is, with rare and regrettable exceptions, successfully fulfilling its primary functions. In his opinion, his industry deserves “high marks” for protecting free speech rather than criticism for devaluing it. Academia’s travails indicate that our campuses are merely hapless victims of a larger “civic crisis” besetting American society, not a cause of it.
Endowed with a strong tradition of free expression, in Eisgruber’s strikingly ahistorical view, America has only recently succumbed to political divisions exacerbated by rampant partisanship and pernicious social media use.
Dhruv T. Patel, Avani B. Rai, and Saketh Sundar, Crimson Staff Writers
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated the Constitution when it froze more than $2.6 billion in research funding to Harvard, striking down the freeze in its entirety and delivering the University a major legal victory.
The decision from United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs hands Harvard a summary judgment win on core constitutional grounds, finding that the administration’s freeze orders were retaliation for protected speech. She also found that the government failed to comply with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires agencies to give notice, investigation, and an opportunity to respond before terminating federal financial assistance over civil rights violations.
David Montgomery ‘83
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: The federal government has recently restored about half of the research grants to Princeton scientists that were disrupted this year, including a large batch suspended in early April, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 told PAW in an interview. The multi-year grants suspended in April totaled approximately $200 million when they were initially awarded, though some of the money had already been disbursed by the time they were suspended.
Most of the several dozen grants that were frozen in April came from the Department of Energy, but they also included funding from other agencies, such as NASA and the Department of Defense. About half of the grants and half the funding have been restored, Eisgruber said. The University has never learned the full rationale for why the grants were suspended.
Cam N. Srivastava
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard College Dean David J. Deming told students that the College can no longer host programming targeted at specific races or identity groups during a presentation to Peer Advising Fellows last week — telling attendees he assumed they already understood why the change was necessary.
Abigail Anthony
National Review
Excerpt: At Princeton University, students who want to help manage the dormitories evidently need to be schooled first on the “Four I’s of Oppression.”
National Review obtained recordings and documents from the two mandatory “DEI training” sessions this week. They provide a window into how, despite the Trump administration’s efforts to purge such programming from campus life, DEI is alive and well at some of the most elite universities.
August 19, 2025
By Tal Fortgang ‘17
Columbia University’s recent settlement with the Trump administration represents a long-awaited watershed moment in the ongoing battle between the federal government and American universities. Its arrival is enormously symbolic within the ongoing saga and is a sign of things to come. How would the federal government treat free speech and academic freedom concerns? Was it looking to avoid going to court, or would it welcome the opportunity to litigate formally? And how much would each side be willing to compromise on its deeply entrenched positions?
A settlement – better described as a deal, not merely because dealmaking is the President’s preferred framework for governance but because the feds did not actually sue Columbia -- was always the most likely outcome of the showdown. It is not inherently inappropriate as a resolution to legitimate civil rights concerns, though the administration probably could have achieved its objectives more sustainably had it followed the procedure set out in civil rights law. Nevertheless, a deal has been struck, and assessing it is more complex than simply deeming it good or bad by virtue of its existing – though many certainly wish each side had simply declined to negotiate with the other.
Digging into the deal – and attending to its silences -- reveals a combination of promising reforms, distractions, and even some failures. Most critically, the agreement’s silence on admissions and hiring practices suggests that the underlying issues that precipitated this crisis will likely resurface, creating a cycle of federal intervention that will relegate this episode to a footnote.
Vimal Patel
New York Times
Excerpt: Around the height of the pro-Palestinian campus protests last year, a conservative journalist sent an email to the federal government complaining about Princeton University.
“Jewish students have felt increasingly unwelcome and unsafe at Princeton,” the journalist, Zachary Marschall, wrote. He cited a series of news reports about pro-Palestinian activism on campus, including a student group demanding “the full dismantling of the Zionist apartheid state.” He wanted a full investigation.
Samuel A. Church and Cam N. Srivastava
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Harvard College will close its offices for minority students, LGBTQ students, and women and fold their staff and programs into a new center within the Office of Culture and Community, according to a Wednesday message from College Dean David J. Deming.
In place of the three centers, the College will establish the “Harvard Foundation” within the recently-formed OCC, under the College’s Dean of Students Office. Current staff from the Harvard College Women’s Center, Office for BGLTQ Student Life, and Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations will be reassigned to the Foundation. Roughly 50 employees worked at the three offices, including more than 15 student interns, according to archived versions of their websites.
Jay Greene
The Daily Signal
Excerpt: While the Trump administration tries to rein in the political excesses that foster civil rights violations and undermine the reasons for publicly subsidizing higher education, Princeton President Chris Eisgruber has doubled down on universities’ political activism.
As a leader of the “Resistance” opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts, Eisgruber believes that universities should have the autonomy to operate as they please, including by using their endowments to advance whatever political agendas they favor.
Harvey C. Mansfield
Harvard Crimson
Excerpt: Two weeks after the lawsuit, the battle is on between Harvard, which did not want battle, and the Trump Administration that sought it. A major concern among the Trump Administration is Harvard’s lack of viewpoint diversity.
Harvard’s one-sided fondness for the left, comprehensive and prolonged, provoked — or even invited — the clash. It also revealed a deeper division between science and the humanities — quiet now but with a Harvard history.
Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In March, the Princeton University Board of Trustees voted to approve the University operating budget for the 2025–2026 fiscal year. For the first time in three years, the total operating budget was not shared in this announcement. Now, a letter from Provost Jennifer Rexford to the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) has revealed the total operating budget to be $3.5 billion — nearly a half billion increase from last year’s budget.
Accompanying this letter is the CPUC Report of the Priorities Committee to the President, with an introductory letter from Rexford to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, containing a set of recommendations for budget spending. However, these numbers are still subject to change, Rexford noted in the letter.
Isaac Barsoum
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: The idea that conservative students are forced to self-censor has dominated right-wing discourse about universities ever since. Princeton professor Robert P. George wrote last year about the topic, arguing that “self-censorship among students, and even faculty members, has become a common feature of campus life.” Recently, outside agitator Christopher Rufo went on The New York Times’ podcast The Daily and said “I actually know quite a few members of the Princeton faculty, some of whom are conservatives … [who] don’t even feel comfortable stating their opinions in public.”
But now, liberals are being arrested for, it seems, their speech. Four weeks ago, the Trump administration detained Rumeysa Öztürk seemingly because she wrote an op-ed in the name of Palestinian freedom.
Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Following funding cuts, a hiring freeze, and increased scrutiny from the federal government, the Board of Trustees did not announce the total operating budget for the University in its budget plan press release for the 2025–26 academic year. However, the University did commit to “projected” increases in undergraduate financial aid and graduate student stipends.
This annual announcement typically updates the campus community on important information regarding the operating budget, financial support for students, and how costs have changed. The missing operating budget marks a departure from the past three years, as the University has shared it in these announcements since the 2022–2023 academic year, and may reflect continued uncertainty about future funding.
Juliana Kim
NPR
Excerpt: The U.S. Department of Education has launched investigations into 52 universities in 41 states, accusing the schools of using "racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities."
Elisabeth Stewart and Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: The Resources Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) announced on Wednesday that a proposal for the University to cut financial ties with entities implicated in “Israel’s illegal occupations, apartheid practices, and plausible acts of genocide” will not move forward, citing a lack of campus consensus.
Student advocates across campus reacted to the decision with frustration, disappointment, and support. But one sentiment they did not express was consensus — about the issue, about the Committee’s decision, or even about the process behind it.
Charlie Yale
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: The Trump administration has used its power to marginalize transgender people to the point of rejecting the fact of their existence. If the Senate passes the language of H.R.28, legal protections against discrimination for trans students across the country could be in jeopardy, and the situation for trans students — including those on our own campus — could become far more dire than it already is.
That is why Princeton must take action to bolster resources and current protections for transgender students outside of Title IX as well as release a statement clearly condemning the legislation.
Kenneth Chan
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: If the 2024 election was a rebuke of American institutions, it was an even stronger rebuke of the educational elite. The Democratic Party, long the party of American labor, has become the party of the college educated. As college students preparing to be the leaders of tomorrow, that sounds like a good thing. This institution supposedly selects the brightest students in the nation. It is supposed to mold our minds for leadership in the world.
It seems our leaders have forgotten how to lead a pluralistic and economically diverse society. To renew confidence in tomorrow’s leaders, the solution at Princeton must be a return to common values. One way to do this is a new civic education requirement.
Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: One of President Donald Trump’s latest executive orders aims to end “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion policies and could upend programs that support underrepresented groups on college campuses.
Whether the order, signed late Tuesday night, will be effective is not clear, some experts cautioned Wednesday. Others celebrated it as the end of DEI in America.
