New president brings broad background in law, public service, academia

The next president of the University, Christopher Eisgruber ’83, has had a long history as a scholar at Princeton, first as an undergraduate and then as a Wilson School professor beginning in 2001 before taking the position of provost in 2004, but he also brings a strong and broad background in academics at other institutions.

Eisgruber graduated from the University magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in physics before going to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and receiving his M. Litt. in Politics. There, he began a career in the social sciences, a field in which he has continued to work for the past 30 years. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1988, and he has clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham as well as for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Eisgruber taught law at New York University for 11 years before joining Princeton’s faculty, with appointments in the Wilson School and the Department of Politics.

While at NYU, Eisgruber became friends with current NYU professor of law and sociology David Garland, who emphasized Eisgruber’s expertise in many fields as one of the strengths that made him an ideal candidate for the University presidency.

“He embodies, I’d say, the values of intellectual integrity and scholarship, and for that reason he ranges across the whole campus with all its specialisms, and he is able to make good judgments about areas not because he’s necessarily a specialist in them, but he has a good sense of what the science affecting the scholarly interplay is really all about,” Garland said.

A passion for constitutional law

Eisgruber has written several highly-praised books on constitutional law. His most recent book, "Religious Freedom and the Constitution," was published in 2010 and co-authored with The University of Texas at Austin law professor Lawrence G. Sager, who described Eisgruber as “smart, courageous, independent, highly creative and enormously well-qualified to lead Princeton and to become a voice for higher education in the United States.”

In their book, Eisgruber and Sager explain the American constitution’s characterization of “equal liberty,” or the system of compromise between accommodating religion in public life and keeping a secular legal system.

Mirjam Kunkler, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies who uses the book as a text in her classes, explained that the authors also call for a criteria by which equal liberty of the religious and the secular can be weighed and accommodated. Kunkler said that this is critical because of the influence’ influence of religion in new constitutions being drafted in the Arab world.

These new constitutions require a more finite differentiation between secular and religious ruling, while the American Constitutional theory generally separates religion only to the private sphere, she explained. In the book, Eisgruber and Sager specifically attend to matters in Israel and France.

“By virtue of the fact that Chris Eisgruber is now president of Princeton University, I think that particular part of his work is going to get much more attention because so many constitutions are now in the process of being drafted.” Kunkler said.

Continuing the legacy

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The previous 19 University presidents have also been noteworthy because of the academic backgrounds they have brought to the position. Current president Shirley Tilghman set a precedent as the first scientist president, originally coming to the university as the Howard A. Prior Professor of Life Sciences in Molecular Biology. She has emphasized the sciences throughout her career as president, presiding over the creation of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the new Frick Chemistry Laboratory.

According to Garland, as a professor of law, Eisgruber will be able to make a similar contribution to Tilghman’s with his own impressive academic background because of his strong connection to the values of the University.

“He has a sense of what it takes to make a great university — his judgments about things, his capacity to take problems and see creative ways through them and his sense of the people, including the University community. Part of knowing Chris well and thinking so highly of him is just having that sense of his understanding of how to treat people properly and how to do the right thing,” Garland said.

This past fall, Eisgruber taught a freshman seminar called FRS 139: The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy, in which freshmen read Supreme Court cases in order to understand the role of the court in a democracy. Eve Barnett ’16, who took the course, said that she appreciated Eisgruber’s attention to every person’s remark in class.

“I thought that the way he designed the course was incredibly challenging, but so amazingly satisfying because we were reading Supreme Court cases, and that’s a really intimidating thing for an incoming freshman to do. So he really pushed us and had assignments that we didn’t think we’d be able to do, but he helped us in class and in office hours, and we made it through,” Barnett said.

She added that he joined his former students for a dinner in Rockefeller College two weeks ago, which she thought showed how connected the students felt to the class.

According to his colleagues, Eisgruber seems to have built similar connections along his academic path.

“My sense is that you’re going to have a really dynamic and engaging president who people will be able to trust implicitly to always do the right thing,” Garland said.

Upon hearing about the appointment, Sager added, "I really do believe it's a great choice and not least because he's such a terrific scholar. I'm a great fan of his and a great friend of his, and the combination is wonderful in a moment like this."

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated the title of David Garland. He is a professor of law and sociology at NYU. Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated a portion of a quotation by Garland. He said Eisgruber "ranges across the whole campus with all its specialisms." Due to a reporting error, an earlier vesion of this article mischaracterized a statement by Mirjam Kunkler. She said religion influenced the new constitutions being drafted in the Arab world. The 'Prince' regrets the errors.

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