Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Khoa Sands ‘26

Elite academia has been dominated by the question of free speech and free expression over the past year. 2024 has seen the explosion of pro-Palestine campus protests, throwing institutions into disarray. At Harvard, UCLA, Columbia, and other universities, administrators struggled to respond as activists occupied campus and harassed other students. Scenes of chaotic fighting at UCLA were played on televisions across the country. 

Khoa Sands
Princeton Tory

Excerpt: While democracy emphasizes a particularized government consciousness that reflects the collective awareness and identity of a specific demos, liberalism prioritizes the universality of individual rights and freedoms shaped by historical consciousness. The tension between these forms of consciousness underlies key debates in contemporary political philosophy regarding which political regime is most preferable.

Raf Basas
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: For centuries, Princeton has been the political and economic elite that America hates. Princetonians dominate Wall Street, with alumni earning some of Wall Street’s highest salaries. Princeton is far overrepresented in the top 1 percent, where 23 percent of Princeton students end up at the age of 34. Princeton is overrepresented in Congress, too. It’s difficult to name a set of “elites,” and not find a Princeton graduate among them. 

This is concerning, because exit polls from the November election demonstrate that Princeton students prioritize neither the working class nor economic issues — we are not just elites, but elitists.

Maximillian Meyer
New York Post

Excerpt: Americans reacted with horror this week to a new poll that found young voters evenly divided on the righteousness of Luigi Mangione’s cold-blooded assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.  To me, the result was no surprise: I’m seeing far worse on my Ivy League campus every day — the logical result of the morality crisis running rampant throughout “elite” academia and among many of my generation.

To far-left young Americans, on any given issue, the world is divided into two buckets: oppressor and oppressed. There is little room for nuance, and next to none for negotiation. I’ve seen this phenomenon firsthand in my role as president of Princeton’s premier pro-Israel student organization.

Abigail Rabieh 
Daily Princetonian 

Excerpt: It’s been my belief that going outside of Princeton to complain about Princeton’s functioning is always wrong. The benefit of a small community is precisely its opportunity to voice your beliefs in an open forum, one that is easy to access and easy to get responses. It is not hard to publish a letter in the ‘Prince,’ and the entire undergraduate community can be accessed via an email listserv. This, of course, guarantees no changes — I know well that the University is not accountable to its constituents. But that’s just the nature of the University: it’s a place where you subordinate yourself to receive an education. 

It seems I’ve been playing by outdated rules, however, because this is not how most people interact with Princeton.

Abby Leibowitz
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: A month after Donald Trump’s reelection and the red wave that swept down-ballot elections in New Jersey and across the United States, public policy lecturer Lynda Dodd joined Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey, for a private presentation held at the Princeton Public Library on Dec. 15. They discussed New Jersey’s potential to build “firewalls of freedom” — safeguards based on actions that governors, attorney generals, and statewide officials can take locally to protect communities made vulnerable by potential Trump policies.

Indivisible Princeton, a local chapter of the organization Indivisible formed by Ezra Levin GS ’13 in 2017 in response to Trump’s first election, hosted the event as its ”relaunch meeting.”