The Freedom to Assign Controversial Books

BY KEITH E. WHITTINGTON It is not every day that a government minister writes to an American university president demanding that a book be immediately removed “from the curriculum of any of its courses” and that the institution “conduct a thorough review of the academic materials” used in its classes. But such is the demand…

Princeton arches

In Defense of Joshua Katz

BY JOHN K. WILSON On May 23, the Princeton Board of Trustees voted to fire tenured professor Joshua Katz on the recommendation of a dean and the president, and with the approval of a faculty committee. Katz’s defenders claim that he is being persecuted for his extramural utterances calling a black student group a “terrorist…

Princeton University's Nassau Hall at night

Academic Freedom at Princeton

BY JOHN K. WILSON This week, the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) wrote a letter to the president of Princeton, asking him to censor a campus website in order to protect a conservative professor’s hurt feelings. This letter is not a defense of academic freedom; it’s an attack on academic freedom. And the AFA is not…

man leaning over keyboard into computer screen, his face turning into a troll mask

The Department of Education as Right-Wing Troll

BY JENNIFER RUTH It sounds like a bad joke. The Department of Education (DOE) has apparently launched an investigation into Princeton University. Why? Because President Eisgruber said that racism is embedded in the university structures and its history. “Based on its admitted racism, the U.S. Department of Education is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity…

Offensive Speech in the Classroom

BY KEITH E. WHITTINGTON Guest blogger, Keith E. Whittington, is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech. The spring semester got off to a somewhat rocky start at Princeton University when a number of students walked out of a class…

Nothing Certain But Death & Taxes? Not for Higher Ed.

BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Rick Seltzer reported recently in Inside Higher Education on a complex decision by Princeton University to settle litigation with neighboring homeowners who argued that the University was a profit-making institution and therefore subject potentially to millions of additional dollars in taxes annually. Arrangement Doesn’t Settle Issue of Tax Exemption The arrangement…