In Katz Case, Eisgruber Muddled Role of Free Expression

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.

As I detailed in National Review opinions published in March and September, President Eisgruber has imposed a dangerous and fraudulent interpretation of Princeton’s Statement on Freedom of Expression. This “Eisgruber Doctrine” protects administrators from University discipline when they defame faculty who incur their disfavor.

This doctrine threatens free expression and academic freedom at Princeton. It originated from Eisgruber’s outrageous 2022 termination of a formal complaint by eight faculty members, who objected to the administration’s false depiction of colleague Joshua Katz during official freshman orientation.

The statement was clearly defamatory. As a former law professor and Supreme Court clerk, Eisgruber should have recognized this immediately. Princeton Professor Robert P. George stated emphatically, “There is no question in my mind as to whether Katz was defamed ... [and that] the underlying motives were malicious.”

Despite this, Eisgruber dismissed the faculty complaint based on a mysterious “additional review.” He claimed this still-secret review found the depiction of Katz protected under Princeton’s Statement on Freedom of Expression — yet the statement explicitly excludes defamation from protection.

Preposterously, Eisgruber refused to offer any explanation beyond his July 8, 2022, bare conclusion. This secret report clearly cannot withstand independent scrutiny. Its use constituted obstruction of a university disciplinary proceeding, and the refusal to disclose its substance constitutes a continuing cover-up.

Eisgruber told the faculty complainants that his bare-bones conclusion was “all of the information the university can share with you about the matter” — a damning lie, in my view, demonstrated by this prior counterexample providing three pages of explanation.

Simply put, President Eisgruber obstructed the faculty complaint and violated Princeton’s “Honesty and Cooperation in University Matters” mandate to be “honest and straightforward in their dealings with university processes.” For a full statement of Princeton’s wrongs against Katz, see my April 10 complaint filed with Princeton’s CPUC Judicial Committee, particularly Sections V-VII regarding Eisgruber’s wrongdoings.

As I emphasized in National Review, Eisgruber’s breach is worse conduct than what forced out Harvard’s and Stanford’s presidents, who entangled themselves in academic controversies that preceded their time in the top office and did not directly involve their official daily obligations. And so Eisgruber must go. In failing to remove him, Princeton’s trustees have violated their fiduciary duties.

On April 1, I demanded the Board of Trustees conduct a prompt, good-faith investigation of my specific allegations against President Eisgruber. No investigation has been announced. On Oct. 2, I challenged the board to “prove me wrong” by releasing evidence of any investigation and the secret report. No answer is forthcoming.

I call upon all Princetonians, the press, public officials, and others concerned about academic freedom and honesty in University leadership to join my demands for prompt and forthright answers from President Eisgruber and the Board of Trustees.