Freedom of speech is a right, not an excuse

In July, a group of 156 students, alumni, fellows, and faculty at Harvard signed an open letter calling on the university to “impose meaningful and proportionate accountability” on members of its community found to have had significant association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In some cases, they requested measures as extreme as revoking tenure, and other times for a formal apology or acknowledgement. 

One week later, five Harvard faculty members, not themselves accused of association with Epstein, responded in a letter to the editor, in which they claimed that academic freedom was threatened by this demand for accountability. They argued that freedom of association — in this case, with Jeffrey Epstein — is not only protected under both the First Amendment but represents the basis for the free expression foundational to the liberal arts and academic research. 

But their defense of faculty’s free speech and rejection of direct consequences for Epstein associates is not a substantive defense of constitutionally-protected free association. In its conclusion, the writers compare the pursuit of accountability for Epstein associates to the McCarthy era, casting the Epstein investigation as a modern-day twin of this notorious persecution of academics which operated under the guise of opposing communism. The comparison presents a quiet yet concerning dismissal of how abuse of power intertwines with the social and financial infrastructure of academia, undermining rather than defending the imperative of transparency and accountability within influential institutions. 

The letter may not directly address Princeton, but it weaponizes and distorts the principles of free speech that protect the world of higher education as a whole. 

To make its case, the letter pits two principles against one another: free speech, and the pursuit of transparency from a network of abusive power pervading Harvard. But these values are mutually sustaining, not mutually exclusive: a university needs to honor both its commitment to academic freedom and its integrity. The idea that neglecting to investigate a powerful institution’s connection to sexual abuse and political and financial manipulation protects academic freedom demonstrates a dangerous misappropriation of the principles on which our universities claim to depend. We should all take issue with any conception of free speech that involves pushing abuses of power under the rug. 

It is true, as the letter states, that no action should be pursued against associates of Epstein at Harvard without just cause. No university should mandate who their faculty may and may not be friends with, no matter how questionable their choice of friends. However, principles can’t depend on context, nor on what we personally judge to be good or decent. 

The repression of academic freedom is a serious danger, but so is the social and financial infiltration of exploiters into the institutions we place on pedestals. To compare the pursuit of accountability and the demand for transparency for faculty association with Epstein to McCarthyism paints the Epstein investigation as a witch hunt, not a justifiable endeavor to protect our institutions from sinister influences. Epstein’s associations were about much more than friendship. They facilitated the transfer of wealth and the control of information and publicity, all of which directly enabled exploitation by protecting the status and connections of responsible parties.

The scope of Princeton’s connection to Epstein does not compare to his networks of financial, academic, and social association at Harvard. But the basis of this letter concerns all of higher education. If we don’t object to defining freedom of speech as a protective measure against accountability, the rights on which we pride ourselves and stake much of our own institutional identity will better resemble excuses and loopholes than a committed pursuit of truth. Academics are right to fear another McCarthy era — their freedom threatened and their associations used against them to further a larger political end — but that doesn’t mean that any investigation into university affairs automatically counts as a McCarthy-esque inquisition or a fervor of moral panic. 

The McCarthy era was characterized by fear-mongering, conviction without evidence and due process, and baseless condemnation. The authors of the letter are correct: most people do consider the period “a dark time in our nation’s history — a mistake not to be repeated.” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 made the same comparison in his 2025 op-ed in response to Trump’s interference at Columbia, calling the  administration’s actions the “greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.” 

The Trump administration continues to steadily attack higher education and is open about their intent to use their investigations into high-profile universities to spread fear and increase their ideological control. Last April, The New York Times cited a senior administration official who identified antisemitism allegations as aiming to “make examples of elite schools to intimidate other universities.” 

So we’re fortunate that Princeton maintains its principled defense of free speech and rejects Trump’s true modern-day McCarthyism, and it’s admirable that Harvard has done the same under immense pressure, but we should be critical of such a comparison in the context of the Epstein investigation. The letter’s accusation conflates academic freedom with lawlessness and, even indeliberately, resembles the common and often successful legal strategy of representing legitimate allegations of crimes against women as smear campaigns. It isn’t always easy to distinguish investigation from persecution, but that doesn’t mean we can immediately dismiss the pursuit of accountability, and particularly the journalistic demand for institutional transparency, as baseless persecution. This error is dangerous to a campus landscape: it undermines accountability in the name of righteous self-defense. 

Princeton staked its institutional identity in the right to free speech. As such, we should be wary when those principles are wielded to dismiss rather than support transparency about potentially harmful manifestations of a university’s power. Freedom of speech should function to hold us to a high standard of honesty and transparency, not to excuse abuses of power and influence in the country’s most influential institutions.

Defining free speech and association in opposition to the pursuit of accountability for crimes like Epstein’s will do nothing to protect, as the writers of the letter describe, “a university’s mission of independent inquiry.” This letter should remind us that any institution which claims to pursue and value truth only reveals their hypocrisy by avoiding accountability.

Head Opinion Editor Lily Halbert-Alexander is a junior in the English department from San Francisco. You can reach her by email at lha[at]dailyprincetonian.com.