Moral Neutrality

Published online Oct. 23, 2017

Deploying the principle of free intellectual inquiry to justify shameful financial decisions made by the University is as morally irresponsible as it is intellectually flimsy. By so mercenary a use of the core principle on which the scholarly enterprise depends, it is President Eisgruber who trivializes and endangers the pursuit of knowledge within the academy (President’s Page, Sept. 13). The claim that free inquiry hinges on moral neutrality in the use of Princeton’s endowment would be laughable if it did not cut so deep to see an institution to which I owe so much debase itself.