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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.

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.

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.

Bret Stephens
Sapir

Excerpt: Torpor, turpitude, tendentiousness: Higher education has been charged with many sins over many years. Universities have survived these periodic controversies and crises of trust because the public appetite for what they offered far outstripped the distrust and resentments they also generated. And what they offered was a lot: intellectual excellence; professional credentialization; social mobility; the creation, advancement, and dissemination of advanced and specialized knowledge; independence from external and internal political pressures; idyllic communities.

But the broader argument for universities has become harder to make in recent years.

Zach Gardner
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: As a former student and interviewee of Dr. Wright’s, I feel her conclusions deserve a defense. As a conservative, I believe Clemans-Cope’s article demands a response. As an advocate for free speech on campus, I believe the principles of free and open debate warrant a proper definition, not a poor caricature.

If personal experience is the currency of modern campus politics, my time at Princeton has proven Dr. Wright’s conclusions correct. I have benefited tremendously from an environment in which my views are in the minority.

Bridget O’Neill
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In November 2015, student protesters from the Black Justice League (BJL) occupied the office of University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 during his office hours, commencing a 33-hour sit-in. The students came prepared with a list of demands, which included mandated cultural competency training for faculty and staff, an ethnicity and diversity distribution requirement, and the removal of the name of Woodrow Wilson Class of 1879 from the then-named Wilson School and College.

Following prolonged pro-Palestine activism in the spring, this scene of the BJL sit-in takes on new relevance — not for its impact on the University’s history of racial reckoning, but for how the sit-in permanently altered Eisgruber’s understanding of his own role in responding to student demands.

Valentina Moreno
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At 1:45 p.m. on July 21, history and public affairs professor Julian Zelizer sat at his desk in his home office, working on his latest books and enjoying a hot Sunday summer afternoon. At 1:46 p.m., President Joe Biden shocked the nation with his Instagram announcement that he would be withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. Before Zelizer could even finish reading Biden’s letter, he was inundated with phone calls from news outlets and radio shows seeking his expert analysis of the situation. With no time to prepare notes, he powered up his computer and addressed the nation live on CNN.

Throughout this close election season, Zelizer and other Princeton professors have been extending their political expertise beyond the classroom, regularly submitting articles for a host of publications.

Ted Balaker
The Coddling of the American Mind, Substack

Excerpt: Every time I think the Ivies are completely doomed, a ray of sunshine pierces the darkness. There’s Steven Pinker at Harvard. Randy Wayne
at Cornell, and at Princeton, there’s Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS).

Each has done so much to advance free speech, open inquiry, and viewpoint diversity, and each has been instrumental in bringing The Coddling movie to campus. Pinker, as well as Harvard Undergraduates for Academic Freedom, made our first Ivy League special screening possible. Wayne, along with the Cornell chapter of Heterodox Academy, made our second Ivy League special screening possible. And, along with along with Whig Clio, we have PFS to thank for our third Ivy League special screening.

Sena Chang
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Oct. 2, the Princeton University Board of Trustees announced in a letter that John Witherspoon’s statue would remain on campus. The decision came after an extensive review process that began in November 2022 by the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) Committee on Naming.

Keith E. Whittington
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: A health sports instructor at the University of Kansas is out of a job after a video clip of his in-class behavior went viral. The university's statements do not inspire confidence, even though the professor might well have been out of bounds.

Sofia Menemenlis, Jessica Ng, Hellen Wainaina, and Givarra Azhar Abdullah
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: At the CPUC meeting on Sept. 30, Resources Committee Chair Jay Groves announced the establishment of an online portal to solicit “community input” on the divestment proposal, which would remain open for 12 days. With respect to the mechanics of this process, Groves indicated that the Committee did not have specific plans for how it would consider the feedback it was soliciting, nor whether and how it would meet with interested groups.

Setting aside broader questions about the role of “consensus” in situations of social injustice, we write to express our concern with this post-hoc, poorly defined, and inadequately communicated process.

Peter Berkowitz
RealClearPolitics

Excerpt: Like all rights-protecting democracies – and especially as a 21st-century great power with globe-spanning interests – the United States requires a host of highly-trained individuals to keep its government functioning, military operating, economy churning, and civil society thriving.

When true to its mission – transmitting knowledge, invigorating the moral imagination, cultivating independent thought, fostering toleration and civility – liberal education serves the public interest by making experts of all sorts more informed, thoughtful, and judicious. When it betrays its mission – indoctrinating, administering political litmus tests, encouraging a haughty self-regard among those who toe the party line, and mocking and punishing dissent – liberal education subverts the public interest.

Bill Hewitt
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: In 1970, Princeton University created the CPUC as a culmination of two years of work by the Special Committee on the Structure of the University. In the preface to its final report, that committee said of the new body: “Both directly and through representatives, more people will participate in decisions on a wider range of issues, and it will be easier to raise issues, to get a hearing, to win the support of others, and to gain access to those formally responsible for making decisions.”

We, the undersigned members of the Princeton University community, earnestly petition for the CPUC to adopt this revised version of its annual “Resolution on the Order of Business” for the 2024-2025 academic year. The reforms proposed here will enable the CPUC to better fulfill its aforementioned founding goals of broad participation in University governance.

Olivia Sanchez
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The first Princeton class admitted following the Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious affirmative action has experienced little change in racial diversity, according to enrollment statistics released by the University on Wednesday.

In an emailed statement to The Daily Princetonian regarding how the numbers managed to stay stable, University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote, “We can’t speak to the admissions processes of other institutions, either before or after the Court’s ruling. At Princeton, we are adhering to the limits set by the ruling and continuing to use a holistic admission process that involves a highly individualized assessment of the applicant's talents, achievements and his or her potential to contribute to learning at Princeton.”

Bret Stephens
New York Times

Excerpt: On its face, there’s nothing necessarily political about the mantra that the customer is always right. It can buck up the patience of an exasperated shopkeeper dealing with a finicky patron or push complacent manufacturers to think harder about evolving consumer tastes. It fosters a service culture that, as visitors to the United States often remark, is notable for its niceness.

Bill Hewitt
Princeton Tory

Excerpt: About Kafka’s great story, “A Hunger Artist,” Richard A. Posner observed, “The hunger artist is tormented by his inability to convince an indifferent world of his artistic integrity.” So, too, Princeton’s recent hunger artists’ professed anguish that the University had not endorsed their cause.   

Princeton’s hunger artists have decamped their recent performance protest on Cannon Green, but their hunger strike created a void that lingers still. In hopes of bending the University to their will, 13 Princeton students had deployed a public hunger strike. Further, 70 or so of Princeton’s faculty signed an open letter of clarion support for these students’ self-flagellating efforts to impose their demands. Rather than urge these students not to harm themselves, the faculty letter histrionically condemned the unmoved University administration.

Jonathan Mummolo
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: On Monday, Princeton faculty will take up a proposal to provide blanket amnesty to individuals facing disciplinary proceedings in connection with recent campus protests.

Much has been said about the nature of these protests, the University’s response, and the political conflicts that have inspired students and faculty to make their voices heard these past weeks. I have heard compelling arguments on these matters from all sides.

Solveig Lucia Gold
First Things

Excerpt: One thing is clear: Our universities are failing to unite political enemies and forge common identities now. The keffiyeh-clad students who run around campuses shouting “Intifada!” while celebrating the cancellation of in-person classes are activists first and students a very distant second.

Those of us who remember cheerfully spirited political debates around college dining tables in the not-so-distant past may find it hard to believe that our institutions have fallen so far, so fast. How did we get here?

Francesca Block, '22
The Free Press

Excerpt: Yesterday, The Free Press published an exclusive interview with Mario Torres, a facilities worker at Columbia who was photographed fighting off a pro-Palestinian protester as a mob invaded Hamilton Hall on April 30. A GoFundMe raising money for Torres’s potential legal fees surpassed the target of $18,000 in hours. The total has since reached more than $30,000.
Now, two of Torres’s colleagues, Lester Wilson and Jesse Wynne, who were also working in the building with him that night, tell The Free Press they feel betrayed not only by the university—which their union is now suing on their behalf—but by the student protesters who put them in harm’s way. Here’s Francesca Block with the story. . .

President Christopher L. Eisgruber
Council of the Princeton University Community
Trustees of Princeton University
Princeton University

Re:    Responses to the Clio Hall Takeover

Dear Officers and Officials of Princeton:

We undersigned members of the Princeton University community make this petition to you.

Bill Hewitt '74
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: In his March President’s Page (“Speak Up for Princeton and for Higher Education”), President Eisgruber ’83 exhorts us to “be an ambassador for Princeton.” Rather than recite public praise for the good ship Princeton, this loyal crew member shouts to our captain of flooding in our lower decks. Would only our captain acknowledge and act on these vital alerts.

To his credit, President Eisgruber acknowledges that Princetonians “can and, indeed, should raise questions about how best to pursue excellence and inclusivity. Disagreements are natural and essential to improving scholarly and civic communities.” But President Eisgruber falls troublingly short on the merits of these objectives and the means to pursue them.

Howard Sereda ‘78
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: President Eisgruber calls on Princetonians to “Speak Up for Princeton and for Higher Education” and to be “an ambassador for Princeton and for higher education” (“President’s Page,” March issue). I would reply “Yes (mostly)” to the first, but absolutely “No” to the other.

I’m grateful to Princeton for the opportunities it afforded me. But what the president misses is how deeply he and his colleagues have entered the American partisan fray and joined the combat he laments. It’s not surprising; viewed from “across the pond,” virtually every American and every American institution seems to have become engulfed in the civil war convulsing American culture and society, whilst protesting their neutrality.

Abigail Rabieh
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: When the Indian government banned TikTok almost 4 years ago, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised the measure as something that would “boost India’s sovereignty.” Now, the U.S. government is contemplating a bill that could do the same. Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved legislation that would, if it became a bill, force TikTok Inc., a U.S. company, to find a new parent company that “satisfies the U.S. government” or risk a ban in the United States.

Much of the current outrage on this bill might appeal to college students — of which 82 percent use the app — because it could block their ability to access content they find enjoyable. But they should be far more concerned by the readiness of our government to curb our First Amendment rights and impede the expression of our core democratic values.

Dear President Eisgruber:

FIRE and the Anti-Defamation League write to express our collective concern about
Princeton University’s improper use of no-contact orders to censor students.

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, contentious debates on the conflict have dominated campus discourse.4 Yet Princeton is stifling these discussions and newsgathering by its student press, by permitting students who dislike certain speech to be granted no-communication or no-contact orders against other students.

Ramesh Ponnuru
Public Discourse

Excerpt: I went to a nearby college in the early 1990s at a time when debates were raging about a phenomenon then called “political correctness.” An editorial cartoon at the time featured three left-wing professors expressing their outrage at the debate. As I recall it, one was saying, “There’s no such thing as political correctness!” “There’s no climate of intolerance here,” said another. The third added, “And anyone who says there is should be kicked off campus!”

Christofer Robles
The Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: To the political right, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is the beginning of the end. The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board warns of DEI officers who “enforce ideological conformity.” Abigail Anthony ’23 claimed that DEI initiatives “divide, exclude, and ostracize students of all political affiliation.” The freedom of speech, some people argue, will be obliterated by DEI-obsessed bureaucrats.

But no one seems to be satisfied. While the right shames DEI for rejecting intolerance and correcting historic systems of oppression with perceived threats to free speech, many on the left, too, have turned against DEI. Rather than rejecting the right’s continued ridiculing of their initiatives or responding to progressives’ calls for a more revolutionary and effective DEI, Princeton has done neither.

Campus Reform

In a Dec. 13 letter, Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber echoed the sentiments expressed by Harvard President Claudine Gay, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, and since-resigned University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill during their disastrous congressional testimonies, in which all three refused to state that “calling for the genocide of Jews” is unequivocally unacceptable on their campuses. The three university leaders asserted that the acceptability of such calls for violence would depend on context, with appeals to the value of free expression.

by Bill Hewitt ‘74

A recent Princetonians for Free Speech opinion essay finds the outlook at Princeton “bleak for the [John Witherspoon] statue, for the memory of Witherspoon, and perhaps also that of other founders of the United States.” But this controversy has far more at stake for Princeton.
Consider four matters of great concern. They go to whether decision-makers at the University are transparent and responsive. Moreover, these matters go to whether these leaders further Princeton’s missions to pursue truth and transmit knowledge to society.

Julian Hartman-Sigall
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: Earlier this month, in advance of a number of state-wide elections, Princeton political groups took part in canvassing and outreach efforts to get out the vote. Notably absent from these groups — which included the College Democrats, the Princeton chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America — was the College Republicans, which, unlike its left-leaning counterpart, did not organize any programming.

The group has historically had difficulty sustaining consistent activity levels, being reliant on strong personalities that occasionally cycle through the University to revive it at recurring nadirs on a campus that has a strong conservative ecosystem.

Olivia Sanchez and Lia Opperman
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced on Thursday, Nov. 16 that it is launching an investigation into University research fellow Seyed Hossein Mousavian, amid allegations that Mousavian is using his position to advance the interests of Iran. 12 Republican committee members wrote a letter to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 with 10 questions to aid their investigation. No Democratic committee members signed the letter.

George F. Will
National Review

Excerpt:  The First Amendment was produced by a Princetonian, Princeton’s first graduate student, James Madison. So, it is altogether fitting and proper that, propelled by Princetonians for Free Speech, this university can spearhead a nationwide rebirth of freedom — freedom of speech, the freedom that matters most, because all others depend on it.

By Amaney Jamal and Keren Yarhi-Milo
New York Times

The conflict in Israel and Palestine has thrown American campuses and society into turmoil.

We are both deans of public policy schools. One of us comes from a Palestinian family displaced by war. The other served in Israeli military intelligence before a long career in academia. Our life stories converged when we were colleagues and friends for 10 years on the faculty of Princeton University. Notwithstanding our different backgrounds, we are both alarmed by the climate on campuses and the polarizing and dehumanizing language visible throughout society.

Collin Binkley, Jocelyn Gecker and Emily Swanson
Associated Press

Excerpt: Americans view college campuses as far friendlier to liberals than to conservatives when it comes to free speech, with adults across the political spectrum seeing less tolerance for those on the right, according to a new poll.

Overall, 47% of adults say liberals have “a lot” of freedom to express their views on college campuses, while just 20% said the same of conservatives, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression.

Jonathan Kay
Quillette

Excerpt: In his new book, the German-born American political scientist authoritatively traces the evolution of the “identity synthesis” (Spoiler alert: that’s the term he’s come up with to describe the ideology formerly known as wokeness) by reference to the ideas of Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Noam Chomsky, and other influential leftist thinkers.

At its root, Mounk argues, the identity synthesis is an illiberal intellectual movement that rejects liberalism’s focus on colorblindness, free speech, individualism, and ideological pluralism—while also rejecting Marxism’s utopian promise of a better future in which society’s class-based divisions are healed.

Keith E. Whittington
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: I noted last month that a Fourth Circuit panel had handed down a divided decision in Porter v. North Carolina State University. The case involved a tenured statistics professor in the college of education who was removed from the program in higher education after a number of complaints he had made about the program becoming too focused on social justice. The Porter panel denied his claim that the speech for which he was being punished was constitutionally protected.

I have now posted an article-length paper examining the competing arguments in Porter and contending that neither the majority nor the dissent approached the question in the right way. I offer an alternative approach to extending the Supreme Court's doctrine on government employee speech to the particular context of intramural speech by state university professors.

Keith Whittington
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: I am pleased to see that my latest article on the efforts of state legislatures to restrict what ideas professors can endorse in the classroom has now been published. "Professorial Speech, the First Amendment, and Legislative Restrictions on Classroom Discussions" appears in the latest issue of the Wake Forest Law Review.

By Julie Bonette
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Why did founding father John Witherspoon voluntarily help Black people by tutoring them and offering religious services while owning slaves and declining to advocate for immediate abolition?