Your Cart is Empty
By Tal Fortgang '17
When Plato titled his account of Socrates’ trial “Apology,” he was not describing an expression of regret or remorse. The Greek word “apologia” meant something quite different: a reasoned defense, a careful explanation of one’s actions and beliefs in the face of grave accusations. For “corrupting the youth,” Socrates did not apologize in our modern sense. Instead, he offered a spirited justification of his life’s work, defending the examined life even as it led him to his death.
Jamie Saxon
Princeton University
Excerpt: Princeton’s research and teaching mission rests on a bedrock commitment to free expression, where thoughtful people of all backgrounds voice their opinions in civil discussion.
As University President Christopher L. Eisgruber emphasized in his 2025 State of the University letter, “ours must be a community where all members can speak their mind and where they engage in civil and respectful dialogue, even on — indeed, especially on — difficult topics.”
Jeffrey M. Jones
Gallup
Excerpt: Americans’ confidence in higher education has increased, with 42% saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in it, up from 36% in each of the past two years. At the same time, the share with little or no confidence has declined from 32% a year ago to 23% today.
This represents the first time Gallup has measured an increase in confidence in its decadelong trend. Confidence in higher education remains well below where it was in the initial Gallup measure in 2015, when a majority of 57% were confident.
David A. Bell
French Reflections, Substack
Excerpt: Five years ago, amidst the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, three hundred of my Princeton colleagues signed a remarkable letter, addressed to the university’s top officials. It decried the university administration’s “indifference to the effects of racism on this campus,” and “the mechanisms that have allowed systemic racism to work, visibly and invisibly, in Princeton’s operations.”
Five years later, the charge has again been made that “Princeton has, in fact, entrenched a system of racial discrimination and segregation.” But this time it comes not from progressive faculty, but in an essay by the right-wing activist Christopher Rufo.
Jay Greene
The Daily Signal
Excerpt: While the Trump administration tries to rein in the political excesses that foster civil rights violations and undermine the reasons for publicly subsidizing higher education, Princeton President Chris Eisgruber has doubled down on universities’ political activism.
As a leader of the “Resistance” opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts, Eisgruber believes that universities should have the autonomy to operate as they please, including by using their endowments to advance whatever political agendas they favor.
Nico David-Fox
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: After an extraordinarily tumultuous semester for higher education, Princeton concluded its fundraising year on Monday with $68.4 million in Annual Giving contributions and a 43.9 percent undergraduate alumni participation rate — the lowest rate since the 2010–11 fundraising year. The final months of year’s campaign coincided with the University’s “Stand Up” initiative, launched in April to combat the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education over the past few months.
In “Stand Up” emails to more than 10,000 alumni and other supporters, Princeton explicitly appealed for donations to Annual Giving, especially in the wake of the suspension of $210 million in federal research grants.
