Published Feb. 20, 2024
Seven years ago, I began writing annual letters on the state of the University, its progress toward strategic goals, and major issues relevant to our mission and higher education more broadly. You can read this year’s letter in its entirety on the princeton.edu home page and University social media channels. This excerpt is adapted from the introduction.
When I talk with Princetonians today, one of the most frequent questions I hear is, “what can I do to help the University?” Here is my answer: be an ambassador for Princeton and for higher education. Tell the story of how Princeton mattered in your life, about the excellence that you see, and about the shared and distinctive mission of colleges and universities in our republic.
As you know, Princeton and its peers confront a challenging political landscape that demands the attention of anyone who cares about higher education. During the past year, we have seen increasingly virulent threats to academic freedom and institutional autonomy, two core principles that have made America’s universities the envy of the world.
Antagonism toward higher education has been especially intense in recent months. In the days immediately after October 7, 2023, some students and faculty members on some campuses made awful statements excusing or endorsing Hamas’s brutal and indefensible terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. The public outrage was understandable and intense.
The campus climate at Princeton has been healthier than at many of our peers. That is a credit to faculty, students, and staff who have searched for ways to communicate civilly about sensitive issues, to support one another, and to comply fully with Princeton’s policies that facilitate free speech in ways consistent with the functioning of the University. I am grateful to all of them.
People are right to insist that colleges and universities stand firmly against antisemitism. Antisemitism is an ugly and vicious form of hatred that has produced horrific suffering and injustice throughout history. It is always unacceptable.
So too are anti-Arab and Islamophobic hatred, which get less attention from the public or Congress even though they are as deplorable as antisemitism and are also rising rapidly.
Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Some people, however, have seized upon public outrage about antisemitism as a stalking horse for other agendas, including, most notably, attacks upon the efforts that we and others make to ensure that colleges and universities are places where students, faculty, researchers, and staff from all backgrounds can thrive.
These attacks are wrong. America’s leading universities are driven by a dedication to scholarly excellence, and our commitment to inclusivity is essential to that excellence. Of course, scholars, students, journalists, and citizens can and, indeed, should raise questions about how best to pursue excellence and inclusivity. Disagreements are natural and essential to improving scholarly and civic communities. In this crucial moment, however, when our colleges and universities are being wrongly and sometimes dishonestly attacked, those of us who care deeply about higher education must also transcend our differences. We must speak up for what we do and for our extraordinary institutions, which are so valuable to learning, to research, and to the future of our nation and the world.
“At a Slight Angle to the World”
My predecessor William G. Bowen described research universities as existing “at a slight angle to the world.” A great university will inevitably generate ideas that agitate the society around it. It will challenge orthodoxies. It will call out gaps between our aspirations and our achievements. It is a place for radical ideas, ideas that can change the world.
American universities are engines of creativity, and their contributions have been essential to our nation’s prosperity, security, culture, and growth. They have for generations attracted talented people from around the globe. Sustaining these extraordinary institutions requires a nation that is confident and strong.
At Princeton, fortunately, the culture required to support a great university remains healthy and intact, both on our campus and beyond it. That is very much a tribute to the good work of faculty members, students, and staff who work diligently to build strong relationships across differences of background and viewpoint, as well as to the trustees and alumni who support the University.
I look forward to working with all of you to tell that story and pursue this University’s mission energetically and affirmatively in these troubled and turbulent times.
With warmest best wishes,
Christopher L. Eisgruber
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3 Responses
Michael Goldstein ’78
4 Months AgoPresident Eisgruber is always happy to trumpet the achievements of Princeton University. What are his comments on Princeton “achieving” a D (recently upgraded from F) from the Anti Defamation League (ADL) on its new Campus Antisemitism Report Card?
More importantly, what will Eisgruber, the administration, and the Board of Trustees do to turn around this unacceptable situation, which has also resulted in a Title VI discrimination investigation by the Department of Education?
Bill Hewitt ’74
5 Months AgoIn his March President’s Page (“Speak Up for Princeton and for Higher Education”), President Eisgruber ’83 exhorts us to “be an ambassador for Princeton.” Rather than recite public praise for the good ship Princeton, this loyal crew member shouts to our captain of flooding in our lower decks. Would only our captain acknowledge and act on these vital alerts.
I support Princeton. To this end, I call Princeton’s leadership to greater transparency, responsiveness, and accountability. My several appeals remain largely unanswered. I urge interested readers to learn more about them at my Tiger Roars site.
To his credit, President Eisgruber acknowledges that Princetonians “can and, indeed, should raise questions about how best to pursue excellence and inclusivity. Disagreements are natural and essential to improving scholarly and civic communities.” But President Eisgruber falls troublingly short on the merits of these objectives and the means to pursue them.
President Eisgruber believes and assures us, “At Princeton, fortunately, the culture required to support a great university remains healthy and intact ...” Nonetheless, fundamental questions remain to what extent Princeton’s culture succeeds or fails to further Princeton (or even maintain it) as a great university.
At the opening of his essay “Elite Universities Have Not Sacrificed Excellence for Diversity” in The Atlantic, President Eisgruber denounces what he terms “a noxious and surprisingly commonplace myth.” He deems simply untrue claims “that elite universities have pursued diversity at the expense of scholarly excellence.”
Au contraire, says President Eisgruber, “Much the reverse is true ...” He later attacks what he terms “[f]alse dichotomies between excellence and diversity.” But he supports his position largely by anecdote, rather than data and analysis. And he facilely labels university observers concerned by pursuits of diversity at the expense of excellence as “smart people who ought to know better.”
Yet President Eisgruber himself seems blissfully unaware in his essay as he commits the classic fallacy of equating correlation with causation. He also focuses on a red herring — that a search across a broader pool of candidates can provide a greater number of excellent candidates from which to choose. (This unexceptional proposition is true.) But he conflates the scope of search with the criteria for selection. The key issue is whether and to what extent selection oriented to achieve a desired measure of “diversity” among all accepted candidates results in a lower level of excellence than is otherwise obtainable. President Eisgruber fails in his claim that Princeton faces no tradeoff between diversity and excellence.
President Eisgruber’s essay receives these critiques and more from University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne (“Princeton’s President makes bogus arguments that diversity and academic excellence are compatible”). Professor Coyne concludes:
... I’m not saying that colleges should give merit 100% priority over diversity. That is a judgment call about whether, as Jon Haidt puts it, you want “Social Justice University” or “Truth-Finding University.” But Haidt also notes that you can’t have both, and in this abysmal piece of analysis, Eisgruber takes issue with that. I have always said that I prefer some form of affirmative action, and I stick by that, but I’m not pretending that substantial increases in equity can be achieved without lowering overall “excellence.” ...
In his January 18, 2024 State of the University Letter, President Eisgruber devotes the “Inclusion” section to diversity, equity, and inclusion matters. This came a full month after the widely reported recommendations by Harvard Professor Steven Pinker (“A five-point plan to save Harvard from itself”). Pinker’s fifth point also applies to Princeton. It is to disempower DEI programs that have proved themselves iatrogenic. Yet neither Eisgruber’s SOTU letter, his Atlantic essay, nor his PAW column mention Pinker. Nor do they address Pinker’s concerns with DEI programs’ deleterious impacts:
Many of the assaults on academic freedom (not to mention common sense) come from a burgeoning bureaucracy that calls itself diversity, equity, and inclusion while enforcing a uniformity of opinion, a hierarchy of victim groups, and the exclusion of freethinkers. … Universities should stanch the flood of DEI officials, expose their policies to the light of day, and repeal the ones that cannot be publicly justified.
More recently, Princeton’s own Professor Sergiu Klainerman has argued (“Universities Are Making Us Dumber”) that DEI has become “a uniquely destructive bureaucratic instrument that needs to be abolished.” And the ADL has just given Princeton an “F” on its Campus Antisemitism Report Card.
So President Eisgruber continues to steer Princeton amid hazards he fails to see or to acknowledge. Oh captain, our captain, the good ship Princeton is flooding below and you steer her further onto the rocks. When will you answer these alarms?
Howard Sereda *78
5 Months AgoPresident Eisgruber ’83 calls on Princetonians to “Speak Up for Princeton and for Higher Education” and to be “an ambassador for Princeton and for higher education” (“President’s Page,” March issue). I would reply “yes (mostly)” to the first, but absolutely “no” to the other.
I’m grateful to Princeton for the opportunities it afforded me. But what the president misses is how deeply he and his colleagues have entered the American partisan fray and joined the combat he laments. It’s not surprising; viewed from “across the pond,” virtually every American and every American institution seems to have become engulfed in the civil war convulsing American culture and society, whilst protesting their neutrality.
In fact, large parts of American higher education are complicit in provoking the attacks they confront, in their academic programs and priorities, their admissions procedures, their tolerance of intolerance amongst their students and staff, and their selective embrace of some forms of “inclusivity” at the expense of others.
Consequently, they have exposed themselves to irresponsible demagogues seeking to undermine their integrity and independence.
No one’s political persuasion should govern whether they choose to attend any particular university. But can it be doubted that it has become a key metric for many Americans?
American universities have to detach themselves from the frontlines and regain the support and confidence of both sides of the divide. They should play a mediating role in this conflict. Otherwise, they risk becoming casualties of it.