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David Montgomery '83
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: President Christopher Eisgruber ’83’s new book about free speech and dissent on college campuses is hitting bookstores this fall, shortly ahead of the 10th anniversary of the student takeover of his office in Nassau Hall to demand racial justice, and it comes just as President Donald Trump and conservative critics assail universities as woke bastions of progressive intolerance and antisemitism that must reform or forfeit federal support. 

In a recent interview with PAW, Eisgruber uses his sometimes besieged perch between the fiery young activists to his left and the culturally aggrieved cadres on his right to sketch the contours of a healthy free speech environment that can accommodate both.

Len Gutkin 
Chronicle of Higher Education 

Excerpt: In the summer of 2020, not long after the murder of George Floyd, the faculty and the president of Princeton University engaged in an especially long-winded instance of the political ritual common to the period. The president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, went first. Given “recent tragic events” and “the ongoing reality of oppression and violence against Black Americans,” Princeton “must examine all aspects of this institution — from our scholarly work to our daily operations — with a critical eye and a bias toward action.”

In his new book, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, Eisgruber calls this letter “one of the most controversial statements” of his presidency. He goes on: “I would myself frame some of it differently if I were writing today.”

Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: With the release of his latest book 12 years into his tenure, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 says he’s not done yet. “Right now, I feel energetic,” Eisgruber said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I feel enthusiastic about the community of Princeton University and the mission of Princeton University.”

Every other Ivy League president has been replaced in the past two years, many of them forced out amid national firestorms. Columbia University has seen three presidents in a little over one year, and the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University resigned in quick succession following a December 2023 congressional hearing on antisemitism.

Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: About three-quarters of the way into an interview with The Daily Princetonian, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 made a bold pronouncement: “American universities are the best that they’ve ever been.”

Eisgruber has been in the business of speaking up for universities since the beginning of the Trump administration, which has put unprecedented pressure on Princeton and its peer institutions. His new book, “Terms of Respect,” argues, as the book’s subtitle reads, “how colleges get free speech right.” Despite the perception of intolerance on American college campuses, Eisgruber writes, colleges still host thriving and robust discourse.

Shane McCauley 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: Watching Ketanji Brown Jackson speak in Richardson Auditorium last Wednesday, I felt an eerie sense of whiplash as the conversation shifted between heartfelt discussions of the justice’s life story and nervous allusions to a democracy on the brink of collapse.

There was no following substantive conversation about what it means for the administration to always win at the Supreme Court. There were no questions from the audience pressing on Jackson’s recent fiery dissents. The discussion eventually came to whether Jackson believes a hot dog is a sandwich.

Isaac Bernstein and Justus Wilhoit 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ketanji Brown Jackson sat down for an hour-long conversation with Professor Deborah Pearlstein in front of a full house at Richardson Auditorium on Wednesday. Nominated to the Supreme Court in 2022, she discussed her historic path to the nation’s highest court, the challenges of public life, and the lessons that have guided her career.

Isabel Vincent and Benjamin Weinthal 
New York Post 

Excerpt: A controversial Princeton professor with strong ties to the Iranian regime has quietly stepped down from the Ivy League school, following a campaign from dissidents to remove him. 

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist, retired from his position after 15 years as the head of the school’s Program on Science and Global Security on June 1, according to an announcement listing retiring employees on Princeton’s website. The professor is controversial for being heavily involved in Iran’s chemical and nuclear programs beginning in 2004, long before the country was known to have been building up its nuclear arsenal, according to German journalist Bruno Schirra.

David A. Bell
French Reflections, Substack

Excerpt: Five years ago, amidst the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, three hundred of my Princeton colleagues signed a remarkable letter, addressed to the university’s top officials. It decried the university administration’s “indifference to the effects of racism on this campus,” and “the mechanisms that have allowed systemic racism to work, visibly and invisibly, in Princeton’s operations.” 

Five years later, the charge has again been made that “Princeton has, in fact, entrenched a system of racial discrimination and segregation.” But this time it comes not from progressive faculty, but in an essay by the right-wing activist Christopher Rufo.

Hope Perry ’24 and Julie Bonette
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: The Class of 2025’s Class Day celebration on Monday, May 26, was met with an overwhelmingly positive response even after a movement to condemn the choice of wellness podcaster Jay Shetty ’25 as the keynote speaker.

Students had objected to Shetty because of allegations that he has engaged in plagiarism. The New York Times bestselling author and former monk told members of the class that they should focus on their own purpose and happiness rather than the opinions of others.

New Reunions policy information regarding free expression

Excerpt: As we enter this celebratory time, please be reminded of the University’s principles and policies related to free expression. Our Statement on Freedom of Expression  guarantees our community “the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” while also noting that members of our community “may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe.”

John Warner
Academic Freedom on the Line, AAUP

Excerpt: As one of the small number of non-academics among the fellows of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, I’m continually impressed with how much my fellow fellows from academia know, and how deeply they’ve thought about issues in their areas of expertise. 

As we see in the Q&A below, the present crisis in higher ed has both deep and broad roots, and, in my view, acknowledging and addressing these roots are the only way to move forward toward a system of post-secondary education that is accessible and oriented around the interests of free people in a democratic society.

Dan Mangan 
CNBC

Excerpt: The Trump administration on Monday announced investigations into Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review after a report that the prestigious legal journal was selecting articles for publication based on their authors’ race and not merit.

The announcement comes as the Trump administration and Harvard feud over the administration’s demands that the Ivy League university adopt a series of changes, including dismantling its DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — programs, and screening international students for ideological red flags.

Matt Lamb 
College Fix

Excerpt: Taxpayers will no longer subsidize a Princeton University program that induces “climate anxiety” among K-12 students, according to the Trump administration.

The Department of Commerce “announced that nearly $4 million in funding is ending to Princeton University,” according to an April 8 news release. The decision followed “a detailed, careful, and thorough review of the Department’s financial assistance programs against National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s…current program objectives.”

Luke Grippo 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: Congressional Republicans have launched an investigation into the financial aid practices of all eight Ivy League universities, including Princeton, accusing the universities of collectively raising the tuition prices. The probe follows broader scrutiny of higher education from the federal government, and it comes as Princeton officials have said they are committed to protecting financial aid.

The letter requested wide-ranging documents related to University admissions, financial aid, and communications between University administrators and college application-assistance websites such as the College Board and the Common Application. The University has until next Tuesday to release these documents to the committee.

Thomas Tao 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: For too long, we have willfully ignored the rationale behind the antagonism that many of the 77 million Americans who re-elected Trump feel for academia. Now, more than ever, we must listen to the public on what we think are closed debates and be open to research spurred by those new ideas.

Luke Grippo and Irene Kim 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: An hour after the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting on Monday, March 24, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed the Princeton town community to address the state of higher education, the University endowment, and ways to maintain collaboration between the town and the University. 

The Princeton Town Hall Meeting is an event held annually by members of the Princeton Council in collaboration with Eisgruber, with the goal of facilitating open communication between the University and the town.

Elisabeth Stewart and Luke Grippo
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: Princeton will freeze most faculty and staff hiring, citing uncertainty around federal funding and a potential increased endowment tax, according to a memo sent to faculty and staff Wednesday morning. The letter, from Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, follows many other universities adopting hiring freezes in response to funding uncertainty. It represents the University’s most significant response to date to recent federal actions.

Christopher L. Eisgruber
The Atlantic

Excerpt: The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America’s prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world.

The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk, presenting the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned.

Jerry Zhu and Frances Brogan 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: On Wednesday, The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos ’86 announced on X that the Post’s opinion pages would shift to focus on content about “personal liberties and free markets,” and that opposing viewpoints would be “left to be published by others.” While he invoked freedom, he made it clear that columnists at the Post would no longer be allowed free expression. 

As the head editors of the The Daily Princetonian Opinion section, we were deeply disturbed by this move. At the ‘Prince,’ we see publishing an ideologically heterogenous range of important and interesting arguments, backed by credible evidence, as essential to the newspaper’s responsibility to our community.

Christofer Robles
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: This Saturday, Princeton will confer the Woodrow Wilson Award, the University’s prestigious alumni prize for public service, to Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan ’81. The name of this annual honor is yet another reminder of the University’s predilection for praising its most polemic figures. 

But there is no need to abandon uncomfortable history, nor is there any merit to overly defending the depraved. The University must commit to truth, representing its history and its icons more honestly. And as it does so, we need to flood the Princeton canon with more monuments to Princeton’s unsung heroes.

Greg Lukianoff
The Eternally Radical Idea, Substack

Excerpt: Over the past couple of months, I’ve explored how (despite numerous, contradictory, and ridiculous accusations to the contrary) FIRE has been able to remain non-partisan even in an era punctuated by intense partisanship. I also tried to turn that reflection into advice for others on how they can do the same.

Robert P. George
American Enterprise

Excerpt: A disturbing trend I have observed over the course of my academic career is the general decline in classical education. The slow demise of classical learning—particularly in core liberal arts fields—has hit our universities hard, damaging an entire generation’s understanding and embrace of civic thought and classical wisdom.

Even our nation’s so-called “elite” institutions—such as Princeton University, my own academic home—have moved away from classical education. Most strikingly, Princeton’s Classics Department eliminated bedrock Latin and Greek language requirements for students majoring in classics as part of an effort to become more interdisciplinary and “inclusive.” At the same time, signs of hope are emerging—especially in the past few years.

Hayk Yengibaryan and Christopher Bao
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In his annual State of the University letter published on Jan. 29, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 defended the University’s endowment, its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, and institutional restraint. Though his letter does not, according to him, address the recent orders and policies from the Trump administration targeting universities, much of what Eisgruber wrote addressed attacks on higher education in recent years.

James (Jimmy) Lane ’92
Princetonians for Free Speech Original Content

I am a HUGE fan of the “I” in DEI. I will leave the “D” and “E” for others to opine. This essay is mostly a story of how multiple-perspectives critical thinking training by a compassionate classmate at Princeton University helped a first-generation college student become included in middle class America and why a university culture of free speech and open inquiry is so vital to upward mobility.

Abby Leibowitz
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: A month after Donald Trump’s reelection and the red wave that swept down-ballot elections in New Jersey and across the United States, public policy lecturer Lynda Dodd joined Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey, for a private presentation held at the Princeton Public Library on Dec. 15. They discussed New Jersey’s potential to build “firewalls of freedom” — safeguards based on actions that governors, attorney generals, and statewide officials can take locally to protect communities made vulnerable by potential Trump policies.

Indivisible Princeton, a local chapter of the organization Indivisible formed by Ezra Levin GS ’13 in 2017 in response to Trump’s first election, hosted the event as its ”relaunch meeting.”

Peter Berkowitz
RealClear Politics

Excerpt: Most selective colleges and universities receive substantial federal funds – tens and even hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year for student aid and faculty research. Since Title VI contains no exceptions to its prohibition on raced-based discrimination, it also bars racism that is systemic. Thinking along these lines, in 2020, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attempted to hold Princeton University accountable for the systemic racism it claimed was lodged there.

Entertaining and instructive as was her gambit, the Trump administration should not repeat it. That’s because systemic racism does not plague the nation’s colleges and universities, and government should not legitimize frivolous claims that it does.

Roger Pielke Jr.
American Enterprise Institute

Faculty in U.S. universities overwhelmingly hold views on the political left. That probably won’t be news to most THB readers. Today’s post documents just how extreme today’s left-leaning ideological uniformity has become among professors and shows that in the past, across disciplines faculty were much more politically diverse.

Mathias Risse
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Last Tuesday, Kellyanne E. Conway, a senior adviser in President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, spoke at a forum at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Conway is perhaps best known for explaining away lies about Trump’s first inauguration crowd size as “alternative facts” in 2017. Back when she made those remarks I had been teaching political philosophy for 17 years and had never felt it necessary to abandon nonpartisanship in my teaching. But I took issue with Conway’s alternative facts right away, and I did so in the classroom.

In the face of a Republican party that, regardless of what it has gotten right, has subscribed to a cult of personality and returned to power on a story anathema to democracy itself, can Harvard remain nonpartisan? Yes and no.

Raf Basas
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At Princeton, we often forget the sharp difference in income distributions between Princeton and the nation as a whole. The media spins a tale of great improvement: Though Princeton had once predominantly served America’s economic elite, it has done well in shedding the specter of affluence that has haunted it for centuries. After all, a whopping 65 percent of Princeton students receive some level of financial aid.

This is a persuasive narrative, but make no mistake: Princeton’s “economic diversity” is a myth. Although the numbers have improved since the 2017 article from The New York Times, just 30.8 percent of Princeton’s Class of 2026 is from the bottom 60 percent of U.S. households.

Julianna Lee
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At Princeton, there is a stereotype of the classic Trump voter: hateful, uneducated, racist, and transphobic. Sitting at an Ivy League institution where a pre-election poll found that 74 percent of eligible undergrads cast votes for Harris, it’s easy to think that people don’t vote for Trump unless there is something really messed up about the way they see the world — but Princeton’s favorable view of the Democrats is an outlier.

We shouldn’t dismiss Trump voters as hateful, uneducated, or misinformed; we should engage with them about where they are coming from and why they made the choice they did.

Ronen Shoval
Algemeiner

Excerpt: Universities were once celebrated as arenas of free thought, where diverse ideas could challenge one another, and truth could emerge from debate. However, a new form of intolerance has gripped campuses worldwide, stifling intellectual diversity and turning academic institutions into echo chambers.

My experience at Princeton University illustrates the extent of this culture of suppression and the dangerous consequences it poses for education.

John Londregan
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At their upcoming Nov. 4 meeting, the faculty will take up a proposal requiring that any contested proposals made by colleagues be subject to a remote University-wide faculty vote.

Although this proposal —  requiring that all faculty have the chance to weigh in on controversial policy changes — may seem like common sense, the status quo requires only the approval of a majority of those attending a meeting in person, typically a minuscule fraction of the more than 1,000 faculty employed by Princeton. I encourage my colleagues to come to the Nov. 4 faculty meeting to support the proposal.

Hope Perry ’24
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Princeton faculty present at a closed meeting Oct. 21 voted 166-156-7 to postpone votes on three controversial proposals related to faculty advocacy until the last scheduled faculty meeting of the academic year, on April 28, 2025, according to meeting minutes obtained by PAW.

Faculty meetings are typically held in Nassau Hall and are open to the campus press and other observers specified by the faculty’s rules. Two weeks before the meeting, the Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy (FACP), composed of six tenure track faculty members, unanimously voted to close the meeting to observers.

Kenneth Chan
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In late September, Princeton Politics Professor Robert George published a column in the New York Times, in which he urged young conservatives to “exercise and … defend your right to think for yourself” in the face of a “hostile” campus community. Days before, my colleague, Head Opinion Editor Eleanor Clemans-Cope, published a column arguing that “to insist on the importance of liberals engaging with these debates is insisting on an ideological project that launders harmful, fringe opinions back into mainstream society.”

Yet both of these columns’ bellicose calls to opposite sides of the political spectrum neglect fundamental truths. Our pluralistic society only works if we are willing to engage with all sorts of opinions, no matter how repulsive. But we must also debate with intellectual responsibility: We need to scrutinize our own opinions as rigorously as possible in light of new information.

Nicholas Confessore
New York Times Magazine

Excerpt: Leaders of the University of Michigan, one of America’s most prestigious public universities, like to say that their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is inseparable from the pursuit of academic excellence. Most students must take at least one class addressing “racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality.” Doctoral students in educational studies must take an “equity lab” and a racial-justice seminar. Computer-science students are quizzed on microaggressions.

When Michigan inaugurated what it now calls D.E.I. 1.0, it intentionally placed itself in the vanguard of a revolution then reshaping American higher education. Around the country, college administrators were rapidly expanding D.E.I., convinced that such programs would help attract and retain a more diverse array of students and faculty.

Academic Freedom Alliance Press Release

Excerpt: The Academic Freedom Alliance today announced the favorable resolution of its case in defense of John Strauss, a professor at the University of Southern California who was accused of harassment by student protestors after he briefly engaged with them at a pro-Palestinian rally on campus. USC dismissed the case against Professor Strauss earlier this month.

Douglas Soule
Tallahassee Democrat

Excerpt: An attorney representing education officials appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis Friday told a federal appeals court that Florida lawmakers, if they so choose, can prohibit professors from criticizing the governor in the classroom.

“In the classroom, the professor’s speech is the government’s speech, and the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis and restrict them from offering viewpoints that are contrary,” said Charles Cooper of the Cooper & Kirk law firm, responding to a judge posing that scenario.

Jennifer Kabbany
The College Fix

Excerpt: The UNC System Board of Governors on Thursday voted to repeal a five-year-old policy mandating diversity, equity and inclusion offices on each of its 17 campuses, paving the way for diversity jobs to by cut systemwide.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: A reader sent me the tweet below (I don’t spend much time on Twitter), but it intrigued me not so much because University of North Carolina (UNC) system spends millions on DEI (that’s not unusual), but because it reports that its DEI policy may be eliminated across all UNC schools this week.  Note that there are 686 DEI positions in the system, with salaries adding up to over $70 million ($91 million if you include benefits).

Bill Hewitt
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The May 3 faculty letter calling for VP Calhoun’s resignation argues that in her April 30 email to Princeton undergraduates about the April 29 takeover of Clio Hall, Vice President Calhoun gave not only an incorrect, mistaken, or misinformed description of the events, but also one that was purposely deceptive. Not satisfied to demand her preemptory firing, the faculty letter concluded with the hyperbolic claim that Calhoun’s leadership is “the real threat to the Princeton University community.”

Chronicle of Higher Education
David Bell (Professor of History, Princeton)

Excerpt: No matter what you think of American academe, you still should not want Elise Stefanik to run your campus. Unfortunately, over the past six months, this canny and effective five-term congresswoman from New York, chair of the House Republican Conference, and a zealously servile supporter of Donald Trump, has maneuvered herself into a position of dangerous influence over higher education.

Her goal has not been simply to humiliate these educators, but to force them to accept her diagnosis of what is happening at their institutions, and to push them to change their policies. The consequences of her bullying became crystal clear last week at Columbia University.

National Review
Abigail Anthony

Excerpt: This week, a Princeton University student-run newspaper published an op-ed by senior undergraduate Matthew Wilson, who detailed the controversy that emerged when he brought conservative professor Robert P. George to dine at an eating club. (For those unfamiliar, an “eating club” functions similarly to Greek life for juniors and seniors, where they eat their meals and, on weekends, enjoy less virtuous activity.)

In the article, Wilson relays that a group of students filed complaints after George’s visit, and therefore the club adopted a policy requiring that the leadership approve guests for meal-time hours who are not friends or family.

Luqmaan Bamba
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Despite ample opportunities on campus to connect across class and culture, Princeton students often cluster in groups of similar kinds of people. As a result, we often inadvertently form bubbles closed to those who do not share our identities. Less formally and in everyday campus life, a clique-centered social life can be the norm. As students, we must work harder to reach out to those who are different from us and to form a more interconnected campus community.

Keith E. Whittington
The Dispatch

Excerpt: Ever since the Trump administration issued an executive order barring federal agencies from holding diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops, Republican state legislatures have explored ways to rein in “divisive concepts” within their jurisdictions. Some legislatures have sought to ban state university professors from requiring that students “believe” such divisive concepts.

Indiana is the latest state to take a similar approach, hoping to incorporate “intellectual diversity” requirements to its colleges’ hiring protocols. But much like previous legislative attempts that try to tell universities what they should teach, Indiana’s proposed law is misguided.

Bill Hewitt
Tiger Roars, Substack

Editor's Note: The little-known but important Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), established in 1969 as “a permanent conference of the representatives of all major groups of the University," is the University's second most important governing body after the Board of Trustees. Its charter is at cpuc.princeton.edu.

Excerpt: I write you directly because my March 11 petition, filed with the CPUC
Secretary, seems not to have been distributed to the CPUC membership. This
failure happened despite my explicit request that each member receive it. Nor
have I received explanation why my request was not honored.

The agenda announced last week for tomorrow’s March 18 meeting makes
no reference to my March 11 petition. Not by coincidence, I submit, the agenda
instead includes as its second item a proposal by Provost Rexford on behalf of the
CPUC Executive Committee. This proposal is to ban any and all video recording
of CPUC meetings. Any vote on such a consequential measure should be by roll
call. A full video record best enables all interested persons themselves to study
public CPUC proceedings and to judge their conduct and substance.

Olivia Sanchez and Annie Rupertus
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At the meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) on Monday, March 18, Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun introduced Princeton University’s renewed partnership with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to issues of emotional health and suicide prevention among young people.

Provost Jennifer Rexford introduced a proposal to establish a recording policy for CPUC meetings. Rexford also serves as the chair of the CPUC Executive Committee. Rexford read the draft proposal, “In order to promote the freedom to share ideas, video recording is prohibited at all meetings of the CPUC. Audio recording and still photography are permitted. Those in violation of the policy will be asked to stop recording. If repeated requests to cease recording are necessary, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.

Sergiu Klainerman
Tablet

Excerpt: In the wake of Harvard, Penn, and MIT’s congressional testimony debacle, followed by the plagiarizing travails of Harvard’s President Claudine Gay and her reluctant and ungracious resignation, it is broadly recognized that America’s elite universities are afflicted by a rapidly metastasizing cancer. Harvard, our oldest and most admired university, is now the poster child for this terrible affliction.

Specific measures to improve our campuses include reviving free speech, institutional neutrality, viewpoint diversity, and individual merit as the only admissible criteria of selection for hiring and promotion. Such reforms are all self-evident within the framework of the traditional telos of the university, which prizes uncompromising dedication to truth and the pursuit of wisdom. If these ideas are controversial at all, it is only because the old telos has been eroded by new demands made in the name of social justice.

Jessie Appleby
FIRE

Excerpt: In a speedy victory for FIRE and the Anti-Defamation League, Princeton amended its no-contact order policy on Jan. 26 to conform to parameters we recommended in our joint letter sent the day before. FIRE and the ADL wrote Princeton last week to express our shared concern about its continued improper use of no-contact orders and similar “no-communication” orders in ways that lead to censorship of student journalists.

Princeton’s updated policy — significantly shortened from a whopping 13 pages to a far more manageable two — appropriately  limits the circumstances in which no-contact orders will issue.