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Good morning!
Last year, students sent a letter to University President Christopher Eisgruber arguing that SPIA Dean Amaney Jamal was wrong to speak out on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict given the principle put forward by the Kalven report — that the University should be institutionally neutral on major public debates. Eisgruber pushed back, noting the right of University affiliates to speak even on questions of public contention: "Deans and other academic administrators cannot do their jobs without sometimes stating their opinions about controversial topics (indeed, I am doing that now)," Eisgruber wrote.
In a recent letter to Princeton Alumni Weekly, Eisgruber suggested he is open to University policy changes on the question. "I recently asked a faculty committee to consider whether Princeton should have a policy regulating the discretion of academic or administrative units to publish opinions on behalf of the unit," Eisgruber writes, though noting that "individual members of the University — including administrators and academic leaders — will retain broad freedom to speak in their own name."
Senior Columnist Mohan Setty-Charity argues that a blanket principle of institutional neutrality may be misguided: "Acknowledging racism in the academy need not be a political statement, and if speaking against racism is a political statement, then the University should be willing to stray from neutrality," he writes. Head Opinion Editor Abigail Rabieh and Contributing Columnist Matthew Wilson have both written in support of strong institutional neutrality politics in the past year.
READ THE COLUMN HERE →
Analysis by Olivia Chen
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