Leonard Milberg
The Daily Princetonian
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
Editor’s Note: In the process of publishing this piece, The Daily Princetonian took several steps to corroborate the facts the author alleges, including reviewing emails referenced in the piece. The ‘Prince’ was unable to independently verify the conversation between Milberg and Eisgruber or the specifics of the document Milberg alleges Eisgruber asked him to sign. The University declined to comment on the specifics of the conversation.
University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss stated the following in relation to Milberg’s account, “Princeton is grateful for Leonard Milberg’s generous support of the University over many years. The University takes steps to ensure that no donor interferes inappropriately in the conduct of University courses, exhibition, or research. As the University’s gift policies state: ‘Gifts to the University must respect the University’s fundamental commitment to academic freedom and the rigorous and independent pursuit of truth.’”
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.
Harvard is quietly asking donors for $10 million gifts to establish new endowed professorships in a sweeping bid to reshape its faculty under the banner of “viewpoint diversity,” according to two people familiar with the initiative.
The campaign, driven by Harvard’s top brass, aims to raise several hundred million dollars to support a new cohort of professors. If successful, the funding could bring dozens of faculty members to campus and drastically shift Harvard’s academic makeup.
Matters of viewpoint diversity have recently received considerable attention in the academy and the media. A recent essay by Lisa Siraganian, “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” makes the case against efforts to increase viewpoint diversity.
I believe that the lack of viewpoint and intellectual diversity within the university has hindered the pursuit of knowledge and the well-being of society. I would thus like to take up Siraganian’s invitation and charge.
To keep the frontier of inquiry truly open, we must address the lack of viewpoint diversity in the academy. HxA’s most recent report reviews literature on faculty political diversity, and draws attention to a potentially narrow range of political viewpoints on campus — with some important caveats. We found that left-leaning faculty are the norm, yet many faculty are apolitical or independent and only a small proportion are conservative.
Higher education faces a choice on how to proceed: build to expand, or ban to counter. Both of these competing approaches are underway, and this week’s news displayed that tension.
It’s no secret that a majority of Americans have lost trust in universities. Survey research from Gallup and Pew points to similar causes, including unfair admissions practices, high tuition costs, limited job opportunities for many graduates and, most importantly, extreme political bias.
As universities across the country seek to address these concerns, I’d like to make a suggestion: Start at the heart of the matter and fix the political bias first. By doing so, universities can signal their commitment to institutional neutrality and take the lead in decreasing the political polarization that plagues U.S. politics and culture.
On November 12, former ACLU Legal Director David Cole delivered the annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. His talk, entitled “A Defense of Free Speech from Its Progressive Critics,” drew a crowd to the Friend Center. Cole has litigated several major First Amendment cases and currently serves as a law professor at Georgetown. A self-identified progressive, Cole explicated an argument in favor of the First Amendment.
Cole outlined the main progressive critiques of the First Amendment. “What unites these critiques is the sense that the First Amendment is too protective at the cost of another very important value in our society: equality.” He also acknowledged the progressive skepticism of free speech’s “core demand” of neutrality – the idea that the government “must be neutral as to the content and viewpoint of speech when it is regulating private speakers.”
By Tal Fortgang ‘17
What is an Ivy League university? The simplicity of the question is deceiving. Everyone knows what Harvard is. Except increasingly, no one does – not the students who attend, and certainly not the administrators who shape the institution, thereby answering that question every day.
By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
On September 17th, Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen delivered the annual Constitution Day Lecture in McCosh 50. The lecture, co-hosted by the James Madison Program and the Program in Law and Normative Thinking, was entitled “Our Civil Rights Revolution.” Professor Gersen discussed the history of affirmative action and the evolving meaning of civil rights.
Princetonians for Free Speech
The political violence that has ravaged America for too many years has now led to the horrifying assassination on September 10, on the campus of Utah Valley University, of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, a champion of free speech whose attacks on the left helped win him a big following among young conservatives while infuriating many on the left. He was planning to debate all comers at the campus event, as was his custom.
By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
Last year, for a comedy show on campus, I wrote a sketch about the fictional Society to Lessen Unamerican Teaching (note the acronym), a group that wants to rewrite history textbooks in Florida. In the skit, the characters pitch ridiculous falsehoods about American history (e.g., Hillary Clinton wrote the Communist Manifesto and also brought smallpox to the New World). My intention was to satirize classroom censorship of historical injustice and expose the absurdity of legislation like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which shapes curricula in a politically-pointed way.
Khoa Sands
Princeton Tory
Excerpt: While democracy emphasizes a particularized government consciousness that reflects the collective awareness and identity of a specific demos, liberalism prioritizes the universality of individual rights and freedoms shaped by historical consciousness. The tension between these forms of consciousness underlies key debates in contemporary political philosophy regarding which political regime is most preferable.
by Leslie Spencer
Nadine Strossen, a liberal feminist and civil liberties activist, led the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008, the first woman to do so.
by Stuart Taylor, Jr., for National Review
After the woke take down Witherspoon, if they succeed, who might be next? Maybe President (of the United States) James Madison, Founding genius and drafter of the First Amendment?
Results track with Yale and Harvard studies of faculty showing similar lack of viewpoint diversity.
Tal Fortgang
Law & Liberty
Excerpt: It’s back to the future on campus free speech. But this time, so much more hinges on what Princeton does next. Universities failed to investigate and punish these dime-a-dozen instances before their supposed conversion to free-speech principles. Yet we have been told that something has changed for the better. This is the perfect test case.
Princeton has announced that it will investigate this serious breach of basic free-expression rules. Videos from the event make it clear enough who had to be escorted out after trying to shout Bennett down. And since the main campus anti-Israel group took to social media to claim credit for the disruption, its leadership should also be in the administration’s crosshairs. The question now is not whether Princeton is capable of identifying a violation of its rules—it is whether it is prepared to enforce them.
Khoa Sands
Princetonians for Free Speech Original Content
National attention on campus free-speech issues tends to focus on only the most sensational threats. Incidents like speaker shout-downs,disruptive protests,physical attacks,major petitions, orunjust firings garner the most attention from alumni and the general public. And rightly so – there is no shortage of incidents that ought to cause outrage from those who believe in academic freedom and free expression. However, there are subtler threats to free speech in the university that fly under the radar, ignored by the press, alumni, and students, but are no less insidious. They can be as subtle as a state of mind.
Charlie Yale
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: What if I told you that Princeton is under investigation by the federal government for antisemitism, not because students, staff or faculty have filed a complaint, but because one man who is not affiliated with the University sent a complaint to the Department of Justice (DOJ)? What if I told you that this complaint and its overblown rhetoric is what led to the suspension of millions of dollars of federal funding to Princeton University?
For starters, it’s weird that the investigation spurring Trump’s rationale for the funding cuts was initiated by Zachary Marschall — a far-right blogger who has no connection to Princeton’s campus or community. Marschall made the jump from a few online videos of chants to the illogical and incorrect conclusion that they made Jewish students unsafe. If campus community members are feeling unsafe, allow them to make the complaint themselves.
Is speaking up in class an act of courage? The students I spoke with say "yes".
By Tal Fortgang ‘17
The assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University was first and foremost a human tragedy. It was tragic for Kirk’s family, his friends, and his many fans and students. Kirk was a man, not a symbol or an idea, and every reflection on his murder must begin with reaffirming that.
Annabel Green '26
Philosophy Professor Jennifer A. Frey of the University of Tulsa delivered a lecture on October 21, 2025 titled “What is a University and How Can We Recover It?” as part of the James Madison Program’s Stuart Lecture Series on Institutional Corruption in America. Professor Frey explored the historical vocation of the university and the crisis facing the contemporary academy.
