The Academic Bill of Rights has been facing a chorus of opposition from the higher-education establishment. University presidents and professors, the AAUP, and legislative “friends of academe”, have been as one in asserting that the politicization of teaching is a myth concocted by McCarthyite wannabes. They’ll now find that claim a good deal harder to make. With the last returns counted, a version of the Academic Bill of Rights has been approved by a student referendum at no less a university than Princeton.

According to the Daily Princetonian, passage of the Student Bill of Rights (SBOR) has left campus observers “scratching their heads,” and all the more so because its sponsor, the College Republicans, numbering only 300 students, managed to prevail over the opposition of the College Democrats, boasting a membership of about 1,000. Little comment has come from the administration as yet, although the Dean of Faculty admitted that he was “studying the matter.” Others will too. No one can argue that Princeton students are dim, conservative, or uninformed about classroom realities.