Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

Keith Whittington
The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason

Excerpt: The presidents' bad hand in the hearings did not stem from a lack of hate speech regulations. Rather, it was due to the terrible track record that American universities have regarding principled free speech positions on campus. Harvard ranked dead last in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's (FIRE) annual campus free speech rankings, and Penn was just one slot above them. Universities all too often have a double standard when it comes to protecting free speech

Zachary Dulberg
New York Post

Excerpt: If the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” mean anything, it’s that hatred is unacceptable no matter what form it takes. Yet the past two months have made clear to me that institutional DEI tolerates — and thereby encourages — the particularly awful hatred of antisemitism.

What else could explain what’s happening at Princeton University?

Sandeep Mangat and Isabel Connolly
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: After dramatic hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives about antisemitic speech on college campuses which have led one university president to resign, University President Christopher Eisgruber released a statement. In the statement, Eisgruber condemned antisemitic speech on campus, highlighted Princeton’s robust free speech protections, and stressed the responsibility of the institution to push back on hateful speech.

by Bill Hewitt ‘74

A recent Princetonians for Free Speech opinion essay finds the outlook at Princeton “bleak for the [John Witherspoon] statue, for the memory of Witherspoon, and perhaps also that of other founders of the United States.” But this controversy has far more at stake for Princeton.
Consider four matters of great concern. They go to whether decision-makers at the University are transparent and responsive. Moreover, these matters go to whether these leaders further Princeton’s missions to pursue truth and transmit knowledge to society.

Brett Tomlinson
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Amid a tumultuous semester of often polarized demonstrations by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups on college campuses, Amaney Jamal, the Palestinian American dean of Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the Israeli American dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, penned an Oct. 30 New York Times op-ed calling for universities to be centers of free speech and “hold difficult conversations without fear of retaliation.”  

This week, Jamal and Yarhi-Milo put some of their ideas into practice, discussing the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the history of diplomacy in the region, and the role universities can play in adding nuance to the discourse at a pair of public conversations, Nov. 28 at Princeton and Nov. 30 at Columbia.

Coco Gong and Judy Gao
Daily Princetonian

Excerpt: The long-running debate about whether or not Universities should release statements on national and global events debate has been thrust into the limelight with recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and abortion, as well as international conflicts that impact members of the student body. The recent conflict in Israel and Gaza, for instance, has placed considerable pressure on universities across the nation regarding their official statements, and different University leaders have taken different stances on how to respond.