Higher education is in trouble. Princeton is in trouble. After Tuesday’s announcement that the federal government suspended some of Princeton’s research grants, it’s clear that we’re already in the crosshairs. At Columbia, after the university appointed an administrative official to oversee an academic department in acquiescence to Trump administration demands, it appears that the integrity of academic freedom is also under attack.
Many university presidents have chosen to remain silent in the face of this attack on academia. Others, such as Michael Roth ’84 GS of Wesleyan University, have explicitly vilified the Trump administration. Rather than taking an overtly political stance against the administration, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has chosen to take a principled stand against the most troubling facet of the recent grant suspensions: their impact on academic freedom.
While support for one’s university president may not be common in the pages of a student newspaper, it’s time for Princetonians to realize that for years, Eisgruber has kept the University on the right course of free expression and academic freedom. He has arguably handled the issues of the past two years the best out of any of our peer institutions, and it’s important in this moment to stay his course.
Princeton has been a model of discourse in the Ivy League in major part because of Eisgruber’s leadership. Eisgruber, who is also the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values, is one of our nation’s most esteemed constitutional scholars, with an immense repertoire of First Amendment scholarship, which has informed his leadership of Princeton.
Under his tenure, barring a few notable critiques, Old Nassau has routinely ranked as one of the schools with the most robust protections for free speech, and overall has developed a culture of discourse respected by students and faculty alike. “Shouting down” speakers, routine at our peer institutions, is relatively rare at Princeton.
Even before the Trump administration’s recent attacks on academic freedom, there has been a crisis of discourse at America’s universities. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) which defends free speech on college campuses found that 63 percent of students are “frequently” or “sometimes” intimidated to share ideas that differ from their peers. Nowhere is this experience more pressing than our nation’s elite universities, such as at Harvard, where just this semester, a survey indicated that most students are uncomfortable sharing controversial opinions in class.
This phenomenon, however, has mostly escaped Princeton. The Daily Princetonian’s 2024 Senior Survey found that just 18 percent of graduating seniors felt very or somewhat uncomfortable sharing their political views on campus.
Eisgruber has prioritized fostering discussions on free speech, including adding programming to freshman orientation, exposing students to the importance of free expression during their very first days on campus. He has also notably championed Princeton’s policy of “institutional restraint.”
Eisgruber is one of the most senior elite university presidents, managing to retain his position while many peers have been forced out of their offices. To top it all off, he’s writing a book sharing his story of success: “Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right,” to be published in September.
And now, at the exact right moment, Eisgruber is speaking out in defense of universities, and doing it in such a way that highlights the value of academic freedom. Last week, Eisgruber published an article in The Atlantic pushing back against the government’s attempt to chip away at academic freedom, and reaffirmed his views a few days later in a PBS interview. After Tuesday’s funding freeze announcement, he also appeared on Bloomberg Business’s “Big Take” podcast to maintain his defense of academic freedom.
But some of our fellow students have expressed their discontent with Eisgruber’s approach. During a Council of the Princeton University Community meeting last week, a student demanded that Eisgruber commit to using his position as chair of the Association of American Universities to “defend all members of the University community from the recent Trump administration attacks on free speech, funding cuts and threats for deportations.”
Eisgruber deflected in response, affirming the importance of speaking about the good of universities but rejecting the idea of directly opposing administration officials. This is, again, a prudent strategy: the administration’s response would trounce the University. If Princeton were to do what the activists ask and look for a fight with the executive branch, Princeton would lose. A single university is certainly no match for the awesome power of the federal government.
In this critical moment for higher education, we implore our fellow students to unite behind President Eisgruber, instead of undermining his efforts to keep us on the right course. Eisgruber is right in saying that we must follow the law while also defending our academic freedom and due process. When Columbia faced funding freezes, little was said by their president before they announced measures implementing all of the Trump administration’s demands. Conversely, on Tuesday, Eisgruber declared that “we have to be willing to say no to funding if it’s going to constrain our ability to pursue the truth.”
We do not envy Eisgruber’s job. But the fact that he has continued to voice his commitment to academic freedom and the strength of the American university is commendable. In a time when Princeton and higher education are under fire, we ought to be uniting against the threats and supporting the academic freedom principles that Eisgruber has championed.
Princeton’s commitment to truth requires discourse. Protection of these sacrosanct values have been fundamental to Eisgruber’s philosophy of the presidency. We should be supportive.
Jerry Zhu is a sophomore majoring in Economics. He serves as the community Opinion editor of The Daily Princetonian, and encourages you to submit a response to this piece or write an op-ed for the ‘Prince.’ You can reach him at jfz[at]princeton.edu.
Preston Ferraiuolo is a junior from Brooklyn, New York. He is an associate Opinion editor majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs and can be reached at prestonf[at]princeton.edu or online @NYCPreston.
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Eisgruber’s empty defense of ‘academic freedom’
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