Letter to the Editor: Eisgruber's administration has quietly eviscerated the free speech rule
(05/18/23 4:26am)
To the Editor:
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To the Editor:
Gene Jarrett ’97 is the Dean of the Faculty and the William S. Tod Professor of English. He previously served as a Chair of the English Department and Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Humanities at Boston University. Jarrett spoke with The Daily Princetonian for the first time since beginning his role as dean in August 2021.
More than 10 years ago, history professor William Chester Jordan GS ’73 was walking with a group of students in front of Nassau Hall. As the group approached FitzRandolph Gate, instead of walking straight through the center, the students split and filed out the two side gates, as students tend to do.
Following the release of The Daily Princetonian’s second annual Senior Survey, Data editors break down some interesting crosstabs.
Over the last few weeks, Princeton Graduate Students United (PGSU) has been collecting signatures from students in the hopes of unionizing with United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. While eyes on the group have been high over the last semester, this is not the first time PGSU has pushed for unionization since its inception in Fall 2016.
The University’s second Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Report highlighted the University’s goal of increasing diversity in academic hiring. While the demographics of non-tenure-track faculty more closely mirror that of the undergraduate student body, tenured faculty remain overwhelmingly white and male.
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. Liberal censorship on college campuses has become an obsession on the political right, a pillar of their case that conservatives are under attack. It’s absurd — and reminiscent of the Red Scare — to declare a national slide into progressive tyranny due to “wokeness” at elite universities. But beyond that, the foundational argument that Princeton is “too woke” and therefore intolerant is a lie.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
On Thursday, Oct. 6, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions hosted a panel about free speech controversies on- and off-campus. Former American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) president Nadine Strossen and Assistant Professor of Politics Greg Conti discussed, among other topics, the partisanship associated with free speech and the specific role of universities.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit to the Opinion Section, click here.
When debates about the freedom of speech and expression inevitably arise on college campuses, defenders of free speech explain that the pursuit of truth — the ultimate goal of study — necessitates free speech protections. On the University website, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 explains that “permitting people to speak freely” fosters an environment of “rigorous, constructive, truth-seeking discussions about questions of consequence.” These talking points took center stage earlier this month in a new first-year orientation event, “Free Expression at Princeton,” which was devoted to making the Class of 2026 aware of Princeton’s Freedom of Expression guidelines and their importance.
Professor of History Kevin M. Kruse was accused of several instances of plagiarism by conservative historian Phillip Magness in an article published in “Reason” in June.
To the Editor:
A month after the University Board of Trustees voted to dismiss classics professor Joshua Katz following an internal report finding he violated University policies, questions around his dismissal still animate discourse both on campus and beyond as alumni, professors, and students in his field react to the controversial decision.
On Sept. 11, 2021, Alejandro Zaera-Polo uploaded the first installment of a seven-part video series, titled “A Gonzo Ethnography of Academic Authority.” Over the course of nearly five hours, Zaera-Polo speaks to the camera, navigating viewers through myriad documents, screenshots, and images, all sourced from a 856-page file he authored.
In a First Things column published just days before it was announced that he would be fired from Princeton University, now-former Professor Joshua Katz dismissed Princeton as an institution which has completely surrendered its open academic discourse. Katz declared that Princeton — and all “elite schools” — have misguided and limited their students’ educational experience, blaming wokeness and excessive formality between professors and students. There are many fair critiques of Princeton; the student body bring them up frequently. But the allegation that Princeton is intellectually dead is not one of them.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit to the Opinion Section, click here.
On Monday, May 23, the University Board of Trustees voted to dismiss classics professor Joshua Katz from his tenured faculty position at Princeton, effective immediately, according to a University statement to The Daily Princetonian.
The years-long controversy surrounding Professor Joshua Katz made national headlines last week as both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Katz was to be dismissed due to a University investigation finding he had misled investigators in a previous inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct. Shockingly, however, these mainstream outlets give credence to Katz’s narrative of a conspiracy to fire him because of his 2020 criticism of a faculty letter, which argued for controversial anti-racist measures. According to this theory, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 surrendered his free speech bona fides and terminated the professor in the face of pressure from, among other groups, woke student mobs.
In an annual address delivered to around 300 alumni, University President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 referenced press coverage of recent controversy surrounding classics professor Joshua Katz, taking the opportunity to reiterate the University’s free speech policy and allude to the possibility of a future statement from the University to “correct the record” on the matter. Eisgruber also discussed what he called a “chronic epidemic of mental illness” nationwide, views on climate change action and fossil fuel dissociation, and the future of financial aid at Princeton.