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David A. Bell
French Reflections
For many years now, conservative and centrist critics have claimed that elite American universities suffer from a lack of “viewpoint diversity.” Even as these institutions made recruiting women and underrepresented minorities a priority, the charge goes, their faculties remained almost exclusively liberal and progressive.
Nearly all these critics reflexively dismiss “woke” scholarship as political claptrap. They don’t read seriously the people they are criticizing, and they don’t look seriously into the question of why the humanities and social sciences have developed such a strong left-wing political profile. I find most of their arguments weak and unpersuasive. But this doesn’t mean that there are not some better arguments to be offered.
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In a few minutes, all of you will walk out of this stadium as newly minted graduates of this University. Before you do, however, long-standing tradition permits the University president to offer a few remarks about the path that lies ahead.
In having a truly diverse group of students share their perspectives, Princeton makes known that there exists a home for every viewpoint. However, as much as I believe this claim to be true, there are unfortunately those who do not. It is easy to dismiss the Princeton administration and culture as entirely polarizing and ideologically biased. In fact, it is true that many here hold the same dominant perspective . But to focus on this fact alone, to rest our entire judgement on one such observation, runs the dangerous risk of neglecting the clear and persistent efforts of this University to encourage every student—even the conservative ones—to share the beliefs that he or she so earnestly pursues.
On April 15, I had the pleasure of hosting, on behalf of the Cliosophic Society, Ambassador John Bolton at Princeton’s Nassau Inn for a discussion entitled “The Room Where It Happened: National Security Decisions Under Pressure.” Bolton’s legacy as a leading professional in American foreign policy offered more than a glimpse behind the diplomatic curtain; it invited a critical examination of the processes and personalities that have shaped recent American engagement with the world.
