Princetonians, Join Us To Defend Free Speech and Academic Freedom

I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiments expressed in this letter and the ensuing commentary. Thank you for taking the lead in voicing these thoughts.

The primary and enduring value of education is to teach how to think not what to think. When any government attempts, by any means, to control thought and discourse it is, by definition, tyrannical. This administration’s cynical excuse of “antisemitism” is as transparent as it is ironic.

I am a classmate and friend of Bruce Furie ’66 and agree with all his comments. I would add, as a lawyer, that the administration has no legal basis for freezing Princeton’s federal funding. I fully support Princeton’s decision to fight back through the courts to stop this foolish assault on its leading-edge research activities.

This call to “stand up” for higher education is a coded call for resistance against the Trump administration’s demands. Most of these demands pertain to protecting Jewish students, including a Department of Education investigation of antisemitism at Princeton. Why is President Eisgruber pushing back so hard, and so publicly, against demands to protect Jews?

The idea that this is defense of academic freedom or American strength rings false. When protesters waved the Hezbollah flag on campus in April 2024, why didn’t President Eisgruber “stand up” to them as strongly as he is pushing back against the Trump administration now? Hezbollah has a lot of American blood on its hands, and it isn’t known as a staunch defender of academic freedom.

Why so obligingly tolerant of America’s enemies then? Why so eager to resist the American government now?

I do not believe Princeton University should be resisting the Department of Education’s investigation of antisemitism. Rather, I think Princeton should negotiate with the Trump administration to find a way forward. Until Princeton University accepts the entirely reasonable requirement to protect its Jews and takes concrete steps in that regard, it will get no further support from me.

Critical thinking — and critical thinking combined with compassion — is what it will take to ensure we can move forward productively and progressively as a democratic society. Here’s to upholding the independence and power of our educational institutions, among the finest in the world. I stand with President Eisgruber and his colleagues.

I compliment President Eisgruber for his leadership nationally in the support of academic freedom and specifically for his efforts on behalf of our Princeton community. As a Harvard professor (emeritus) at Harvard Medical School, I signed the early April letter by Harvard faculty urging the Harvard Trustees/Corporation to refuse the ultimatums of the Trump administration. And they did, providing leadership for the entire academic community. This has been extremely costly to Harvard. Retribution has included termination of many ongoing federal grants, blockage of new federal grants, lowering of the indirect cost rate of existing federal grants from around 70% to 15%, disruption of the visa process for international students, challenges to the nonprofit tax status of the university, and so on. The battle is on. The president has taken a 25% pay cut, senior tenured faculty have been asked to volunteer for a 10% pay cut. A hiring freeze is on. Some graduate programs are on hold for lack of training grant funds. As a physician-scientist, I am not alone in my concern for the future of America’s leadership in science, medicine, and education.

I agree with my classmate, Tizgel High ’00: Princeton and its peers need to focus on truth, and its corollaries understanding and atonement will follow. However, in this essay’s call for “defense of free speech, academic freedom, and the rule of law,” I do not quite hear the focus on truth that I think necessary for a university whose ancient motto is, after all, Dei sub numine viget, “under the presence of God she flourishes,” which surely implies a commitment to the pursuit of objective truth wherever it leads. Scholarship does not need to be “woke” to acknowledge our nation’s grievous record of racism, it simply needs to be honest — and there are undeniably political schemes afoot from certain conservative quarters which would suppress such honesty.

But I also agree with Jordana Rothstein ’05. While there certainly have been justified, intelligent academic criticisms leveled at the State of Israel before and after Oct. 7, there has also inarguably been a great deal of nonsense, lies, and slander, some of it emanating from the Princeton professoriate. President Eisgruber would not simply double down on a commitment to free speech in the face of other forms of patent prejudice, he would also signal a commitment to contesting such rank dishonesty — a commitment which, in the face of so much unmeasured, ill-informed anti-Zionist and settler-colonialism “scholarship,” has been lacking.

As Danielle Allen ’93, a classicist of the first rank, could surely tell us, the ancient Greek ideal of parrhesia that has informed her so much of her own important scholarship translates not so much as “free speech” as “speaking truth no matter the consequences,” and this, rather than academic freedom per se, should be Princeton’s guiding light.

As most of us are aware, criticizing the actions of the current Israeli government does not make one an antisemite. If it did, over half the citizens of Israel would be antisemites!

I applaud the stand taken by President Eisgruber while at the same time condemning any and all antisemites who threatened Jewish students at Princeton.

Of course we should support academic freedom at Princeton, and President Eisgruber’s defense of it, but this is an attack on higher education and the pursuit of truth across the country, not just at Princeton, with terrible consequences for the whole country. In the 1930s, Hitler dismantled the world’s leading system of research universities and it’s a shame that so many people today seem to take that as a playbook, rather than a warning.

I was glad to read and sign the open letter published by Dean Slaughter and other distinguished alumni. For Princetonians looking for more ways to support the University in its stand for academic freedom, consider committing donations to the cause via the Princeton Freedom Fund petition: https://bit.ly/ptonfreedomfund

 

As we are learning from the cases of Harvard and others, the nation’s universities are in for a long struggle against government villainization. They will need support from alumni and the public in spades. Princeton has already announced significant budget cuts over the coming years. In addition to providing their moral support, alumni can soften the impact and make a strong showing of solidarity with their financial commitments.

 

Tripling our Annual Giving donations, at an average cost of $2,100 per alumnus/a, would fill the reported $210 million hole left by federal defunding. Princetonians of classes from 1952 to 2020 have responded to our petition to commit dollars toward that goal, as they are able. Please consider joining them. As graduates, we are in a unique position to defend the principles that make Princeton and other American universities great, to absorb some of the impact on University staff and students, and to set an example to all of dedication in the nation’s service.

I’m in! Freedom of speech is our most fundamental right against an encroaching government. 

I am a proud Jewish member of the Great Class of 1970, which makes me about as much of a minority as it is possible to be. Princeton is not an antisemitic institution now, and Danielle Allen, Chris Eisgruber, and their colleagues are 100% correct in their analysis.

I heartily agree.

This is a helpful first step.

Add my name to this letter.

I am proud of our leadership’s response to today’s relentless attacks on the rule of law and will be happy to help in any way I can.

For Jewish alumni like myself, President Eisgruber’s decision does not feel like a defense of free speech, it feels like a slap in the face. Were any other minority group being targeted on campus, I feel fairly certain that his response would be different.

Education has been the strongest equalizer to right the wrongs of the founding and history of America through the enslavement of African people and their descendants. The administration’s attacks on higher education, and public education generally, appear to be designed to re-write a dishonest history and erase the rich culture of all non-white Americans. Regardless of politics, our history is what it is and is only remedied by truth, understanding, and atonement. The scholarship, research, and learning at Princeton and other institutions is needed to continue our country’s path forward. Subversion cannot be the way our government leaders responds to things they don’t like.