Excerpt: The First Amendment was produced by a Princetonian, Princeton’s first graduate student, James Madison. So, it is altogether fitting and proper that, propelled by Princetonians for Free Speech, this university can spearhead a nationwide rebirth of freedom — freedom of speech, the freedom that matters most, because all others depend on it.
This article is a slightly edited version of a speech that the author gave on September 13, 2023, to Princetonians for Free Speech. The speech was co-sponsored by the James Madison Program and its Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression.
Megan McArdle argues that Carolyn Rouse — Princeton anthropology professor and AAA president — badly botched a Chronicle of Higher Education interview meant to rebut a Vanderbilt/WashU report accusing anthropology of suppressing dissent on politically charged topics. McArdle uses the episode to argue academia has grown accustomed to speaking only to itself, at a moment when public trust in higher ed is collapsing — and that unless it repairs its credibility, financial consequences will follow reputational ones.
Faith in higher education continues to plummet, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—the nation’s leading organization representing faculty interests and a longstanding voice on academic freedom and university governance—has decided to train its guns on the growing movement to establish civic education centers at public universities. The AAUP’s objections amount to a single, unlovely demand: we get to decide what students learn, and nobody else gets a vote.
Six days after the report went online, the AAA fired back with a full-throated defense. “Anthropologists welcome rigorous critique of the discipline,” wrote its president, Carolyn M. Rouse. “What we cannot accept is a sweeping verdict about anthropology’s intellectual culture, scholarly practices, and professional norms built on selective evidence and issued without consultation.
