Princeton Free Speech Scandal: How President Eisgruber Took Credit for a Student-Led Reform

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber recently published a book with an undeniably contrarian title, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right. In his promotional media tour, he appeared on an NPR podcast hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti. During their discussion, Chakrabarti challenged Eisgruber by questioning whether universities have consistently promoted free expression. As an example, she cited that the class of 2025 at Princeton was required to watch an orientation video in which a classics professor argued that free speech is a merely instrumental good to be used in service of “anti-racist social justice.” She asked whether this video amounted to the university “sending a message” that some speech and ideas are acceptable while others are not, to which Eisgruber responded as follows:

With such a response, Eisgruber implicitly credits his administration by obscuring the origins of this particular orientation event, thus allowing himself and the university to appear as virtuous guardians of free expression who detected a problem and developed a solution. But that is inaccurate. I know because I helped design the event in question.

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber recently published a book with an undeniably contrarian title, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right. In his promotional media tour, he appeared on an NPR podcast hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti. During their discussion, Chakrabarti challenged Eisgruber by questioning whether universities have consistently promoted free expression. As an example, she cited that the class of 2025 at Princeton was required to watch an orientation video in which a classics professor argued that free speech is a merely instrumental good to be used in service of “anti-racist social justice.” She asked whether this video amounted to the university “sending a message” that some speech and ideas are acceptable while others are not, to which Eisgruber responded as follows:

With such a response, Eisgruber implicitly credits his administration by obscuring the origins of this particular orientation event, thus allowing himself and the university to appear as virtuous guardians of free expression who detected a problem and developed a solution. But that is inaccurate. I know because I helped design the event in question.