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Professors Robert P. George, Tom Ginsburg, Robert Post, David Rabban, Jeannie Suk Gersen, and Keith Whittington
Substack on Academic Freedom
Excerpt: We write as scholars of academic freedom to respond to the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We are politically diverse and do not share common views about the wisdom of particular proposals contained in the Compact. Nor do we agree on the extent or substance of the reforms needed in American higher education today. We are, however, united in our concern about key features of the proposed Compact.
The power to punish extramural speech has been abused against both conservative and liberal speakers in the past. The requirement of the Compact that universities and colleges censor students and faculty who voice support for “entities designated by the U.S. government as terrorist organization” imposes overly intrusive regulation of constitutionally protected speech.
Cynthia Torres
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Princeton will require undergraduate applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores beginning with the 2027–28 admission cycle, the University announced Thursday. The decision will end a seven-year stint of test-optional undergraduate admissions that began during the pandemic.
Several peer institutions including Harvard, Penn, and Brown, have announced in the past year and a half that they would require standardized tests, with changes set to take place in the application cycles during the 2024–25 or 2025–26 school years. Yale, meanwhile, has adopted a test-flexible policy allowing students to choose from SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate scores to submit. Columbia has become permanently test-optional.
Shilo Brooks
The Free Press
Excerpt: Last year, our reporter Frannie Block told me about a lecturer at Princeton who was teaching a class on “greatness,” firmly rooted in the classic books of the Western canon. He would open his course by telling students that if “the greatest thing, the best thing, the noblest thing about you on your deathbed is that you got into Princeton, you didn’t do it right.”
His name is Shilo Brooks, and when I got to meet him myself, we spoke for hours about the problem of America’s lost boys, the dramatic decline in book-reading, and how those two things are connected. So I am thrilled to announce today that we are launching his brand-new podcast Old School, which is about books and how reading them can make us better.
On with Kara Swisher
Excerpt: Universities and free speech are at the center of America’s culture wars. And since President Trump took office, higher education has been in the crosshairs — and Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber is one of the few college leaders speaking out.
In this episode, Kara talks with Eisgruber about his new book, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, and the growing attacks on universities, free speech, and academic freedom.
Bill Hewitt '74
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Excerpt: Those interested in President Eisgruber’s leadership failures should read “A Princeton President’s Evasions” by Len Gutkin in The Chronicle of Higher Education and my recent complaint filed with Princeton’s accrediting agency detailing crucial failures by Eisgruber, his administration, and Princeton’s Board of Trustees.
Amelia Freund
Princetonians for Free Speech
My name is Amelia Freund and I am honored to be serving as President of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) this year. An Army brat hailing from the DC-Maryland-Virginia area, I am a member of the great class of 2028, the Butler College Class Council, and the Politics Department. In high school I read On Liberty by John Stuart Mill several times over in my philosophy courses, each time I found it engaging and inspirational. I was particularly drawn in by Mill’s defense of free speech. He believed that for an idea to be true, it must be continuously discussed and debated, requiring broad protections for civic discourse. His argument resonated with me a great deal, and has carried me to countless engagements with freedom of speech since then, both in and out of the classroom.
