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Tal Fortgang ‘17

When Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber spoke at Harvard on November 5, 2025, he expressed what to his detractors may have sounded like an epiphany. “There’s a genuine civic crisis in America,” he said, noting how polarization and social-media amplification have made civil discourse uniquely difficult. Amid that crisis, he concluded, colleges must retain “clear time, place, and manner rules” for protest, and when protesters violate those rules, the university must refuse to negotiate. As he warned: “If you cede ground to those who break the rules … you encourage more rule-breaking, and you betray the students and scholars who depend on this university to function.”

Frances Brogan
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In a recent op-ed for Time Magazine, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 ostensibly affirms the value of student protest. But reading between the lines, his piece is at best an ambivalent defense of campus activism, vacillating between qualified praise and condescension. 

The piece suggests that student protests are just manifestations of misguided youthful zeal, and that, as a vehicle for social change, they’re always inferior to his ideal of rational discussion. Eisgruber describes student movements and protesters, by turns, as “naive,” “ill-considered,” “oversimplified,” and “irritating” — never as courageous, virtuous, or necessary.

Olivia Sanchez and Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: A group of students, faculty, alumni, and postdocs met with University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, Dean of the Graduate School Rodney Priestley, and Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs Amaney Jamal on Monday at 11:30 a.m. to discuss the demands of the ongoing sit-in on Cannon Green.

The students’ demands, which have been public since the beginning of the sit-in on April 25, include divestment from Israeli companies and American military funding, an academic boycott of Israeli universities, the cultivation of ties with Palestinian academic institutions, and the creation of a center for Palestinian studies with scholarships for people displaced from Gaza. Multiple students present at the meeting told the Daily Princetonian that Eisgruber declined to meet any of their demands.

Elisabeth H. Daugherty, Peter Barzilai s’97, and Julie Bonette
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Pro-Palestine protesters tried to stage a sit-in at Clio Hall Monday night, and at least two were put onto a bus by police. Dozens of others blocked the front and back doors and said they would not leave until charges were dropped and the University agreed to negotiate their demands.

Vitus Larrieu
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: An executive order signed by President Donald Trump and released on Wednesday, Jan. 29 calls for Princeton and other universities to “monitor” and “report activities by alien students and staff” for actions that constitute antisemitism.

The executive order gives various federal agencies — including the Department of Education — 60 days to create a list of all cases involving a university alleging civil rights violations related to antisemitism that occurred following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A Title VI case related to antisemitism at Princeton was opened by the Department of Education in January 2024, referencing chants at pro-Palestine protests in October 2023.

Annie Rupertus and Miriam Waldvogel
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: About 100 undergraduate and graduate students began a sit-in on McCosh Courtyard early Thursday morning, joining a wave of pro-Palestinian sit-ins across the country. After student organizers first began to erect tents, Princeton Public Safety (PSAFE) issued its first warning to protesters. At least two student arrests have been made. After the initial arrests, students folded them away.

Alex Norbrook and Alan Plotz
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Princeton rolled out a new protest website two weeks ago, expanding their “time, place, and manner” restrictions to more times, more places, and more manners. By placing explicit bans on some of the most common forms of political demonstration, tightening language on obscure and inconsistently-applied existing restrictions, and departing from a constructive approach of speaking with protestors, the policies intend to stoke fear and chill protest.

We, the undersigned member organizations of the Princeton Progressive Coalition, oppose these tightened restrictions, reject the University’s hostile approach to protest, and call on all who support free speech and free expression to challenge these protest bans.

April 9, 2025

Dear President Eisgruber:

We, the officers of Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), are writing to express our organization’s very deep concerns about the disruption of the program featuring former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on April 7 and actions of severe antisemitism during and after that program.

Olivia Sanchez and Annie Rupertus
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: In interviews with the ‘Prince,’ six students subject to University disciplinary proceedings described a tangled process that appeared fixated on searching for protest leaders to blame and employed tactics they described as invasive. The students were all investigated for supposed participation in pro-Palestine disruptions last spring. 

Their accounts, corroborated by dozens of documents reviewed by the ‘Prince,’ including emails and investigation records, provide a rare glance behind the scenes of the University’s investigative apparatus.

Abigail Anthony
National Review

Excerpt: Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber sent an email today to all undergraduates recognizing that it has been nearly two weeks since a sit-in began on campus. He notes the particularly fraught situation, stating, “Never have I seen our campus more riven with passionate disagreements, disagreements that encompass the war in Gaza as well as issues about Princeton itself.” Eisgruber confirmed that “my colleagues and I are now in direct conversation with the protestors,” adding, “We can consider their concerns through appropriate processes that respect the interests of multiple parties and viewpoints, but we cannot allow any group to circumvent those processes or exert special leverage.”  Although Eisgruber and administrators are now speaking with the protesters, his email does not offer a particularly positive description of them. . . . The university’s stance is clear: The administration is willing to consider — even implement — demands raised by students who occupy buildings.

The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal 

Excerpt: President Trump keeps flexing the government’s power over elite universities, with Cornell and Northwestern the latest to have federal funds withheld. After Princeton received the same treatment last week, it’s now facing a test of its principles. On Monday students disrupted a campus talk by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Princeton’s rules of conduct, drawing from the University of Chicago’s statement on free speech, say students “may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject.” Who pulled the fire alarm? Who was yelling antisemitic taunts at Jewish students? If they were students, why would Princeton want them?

Frannie Block and Maya Sulkin
The Free Press

Excerpt: In 2024, David Piegaro attended a pro-Palestine rally on Princeton University’s campus as a self-described “citizen journalist.” After watching all this from a distance, Piegaro began to follow and videotape Princeton professor Max Weiss, who Piegaro recognized as a leader of a pro-Palestine faculty group, and another man wearing a suit. When Piegaro tried to enter a building with them, the man with the suit essentially shoved him down the stairs, alleges Piegaro.

In April, a New Jersey judge found Piegaro not guilty of all the charges, concluding that he might “have been unwise, or even defiant, but it does not amount to reckless disregard.” On Wednesday, Piegaro filed a lawsuit against Princeton and Strother in a federal court in New Jersey, alleging violations of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, use of excessive force, wrongful imprisonment, fabrication of evidence, and more.

Princeton Alumni Weekly
Brett Tomlinson, Elisabeth H. Daugherty, Julie Bonette

Excerpt: Protesters set up tents for a student-led pro-Palestine encampment in McCosh Courtyard at about 7 a.m. Thursday. After warnings from University officials, two Princeton students were arrested, and the remaining protesters packed away their camping gear and continued the demonstration as a sit-in.