BY JOHN K. WILSON
Written by a who’s who of conservative and centrist campus free speech advocates—including Donald Downs, Robert George, Alan Charles Kors, Greg Lukianoff, John Tomasi, and Keith Whittington—the Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry released this month follow in the wake of the Chicago Principles, saying they “affirm this view while extending its scope.” Most of the Princeton Principles consist of very familiar and beneficial language, but their failure to reject external political intrusions is a threat to free inquiry rather than a path toward it.
The Princeton Principles are too restrictive of free inquiry, proclaiming about campus speakers: “The limits of speech in these extracurricular venues are those that generally apply in free speech jurisprudence, including genuine threats, deliberate incitement to imminent violence, constitutionally defined obscenity, copyright violations, bribery, plagiarism, fraud, libel and slander, and violations of privacy or confidentiality.” This list of limits is far too lengthy and inappropriate for speakers. You can be sued for slander, but you shouldn’t be banned from speaking at a college. The unclear language suggests that any of these excuses could justify a college banning a speaker for past misconduct, or shutting down an event mid-sentence if some administrator imagines a speaker is committing slander or violating confidentiality. There is no good reason for colleges to ban any speakers, and offering long lists of possible exceptions will only empower censors.
The Princeton Principles wrongly declare that “instructors should not be discriminated against in decisions pertaining to hiring, promotion, job security, or salary based on ideas expressed in extramural speech that would be protected in the public forum writ large, including criticism of institutional policies and actions. In exchange for this right, faculty members and students engaging in extramural speech must make it evident that they speak for themselves, not as spokespersons for the institution.”
This is false on both counts. Faculty hiring committees should be able to discriminate against stupid people. For example, a potential biology instructor who believes evolution is a lie and the biology textbook was written by alien invaders seeking to control our minds is expressing “speech that would be protected in the public forum,” but they can still be discriminated against in hiring. Instead, any negative actions based on extramural utterances must be academically justifiable and follow due process.
The notion that faculty (and shockingly, even students) “must make it evident that they speak for themselves” is dangerously wrong. By this standard, every time a student tweets or speaks at a protest against the administration, they must declare that they are not speaking for the college or face potential discipline. There is no obligation to issue silly disclaimers every time you talk.
Embracing the Kalven Report, the Princeton Principles call for limits on institutional statements: “Whereas individual students and faculty members have the right to speak out regarding any matter, the institution and its units should speak out only about matters that clearly affect their normal operations and the intellectual freedom they must protect. Taking stances on matters extraneous to the operations of the university, including on moral, political, and constitutional or legal questions on which our society is divided, effectively establishes an orthodox view.”
But who decides what is “extraneous to the operations of the university”? Is racism extraneous to a university? Is discrimination against trans people extraneous to the trans members of the university? If taking a stance establishes an “orthodox view,” then why should universities be allowed to do it regarding intellectual freedom, unlike other topics?
The addition of “and its units” to the ban on institutional stands is an alarming expansion. It’s one thing to say administrators should not make statements to avoid orthodoxy. It’s quite different to claim that administrators should silence faculty departments and other “units”—a term that could include the faculty senate, student government, and other programs, which are legally units of the university. That sounds more like the imposition of orthodoxy than the prevention of it.
Even when the Princeton Principles acknowledge the threat to free speech from the right, there is sympathy for certain censors: “Trustees, regents, alumni, and state legislators have become more active in university affairs, sometimes pressing for changes that stifle free inquiry despite proposing them for the sake of promoting it.” Unlike the evil leftists who are said to oppose free speech, the right-wing censors are praised for “promoting” free speech while they accidentally “stifle” it in their enthusiasm for freedom.
The Princeton Principles make money more important than merit: “Government and private donors may fund programs devoted to fields of inquiry that they think would enhance intellectual diversity and therefore contribute to the vigor of inquiry on campus, provided they specify and justify intellectual or pedagogical reasons for the effort.“ Any legislature or private donor can create a program if “they think” it enhances diversity, with no faculty authority to approve academic programs.
According to the Princeton Principles, “any influence exerted by non-faculty entities must be motivated by the desire to protect and secure free inquiry, not to achieve a partisan goal. To justify increased influence, it must first be determined by clear and convincing evidence that faculty members and administrators are not adequately fulfilling their responsibilities.” This is an invitation for legislative intrusion based on alleged good “motives.” We should reject this idea that legislators can infringe upon academic freedom if they claim to have “evidence” that one professor is failing in their responsibilities.
The Princeton Principles conclude: “Institutional and faculty self-governance presuppose adherence and dedication to the work of fostering free and vigorous inquiry.” This formulation makes shared governance and institutional autonomy conditional rather than fundamental doctrines. Faculty and institutional self-governance can then be revoked based on someone’s opinion that a university is not sufficiently dedicated to free inquiry. The great failure of the Princeton Principles, even though it makes token criticisms of political intrusion, is that it endorses this concept. The Princeton Principles want to remake the university into a place where donors, trustees, and politicians can be the benevolent dictators restoring the free speech that faculty have failed to protect. At a time when legislative intrusions pose an extraordinary threat to academic freedom, the Princeton Principles offer little resistance and tepid applause for repression.
John K. Wilson was a 2019-20 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and is the author of eight books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies and the forthcoming book, The Attack on Academia.
