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The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
After de jure limitations on free speech on college campuses spurred corrective policies, University administrators and advocates of free speech must now construct protections against de facto limitations. My experience at Princeton hosting conservative intellectuals has taught me that official policies are not enough to defend a robust environment of open inquiry. Without sufficient administrative support, hosting heterodox speakers can have an unintended consequence: it can shut down debate.
Last semester, in my capacity as publisher of The Tory, I invited conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and author of Irreversible Damage Abigail Shrier to Princeton. In hosting her, I hoped to widen campus discourse on contentious issues. I did not invite Shrier — nor have I invited any speaker — to be a provocateur. Shrier is an exceptionally sharp thinker and her message is an oft-heard but much needed one. In the first indication that I might receive pushback for the event, not a single University center responded to my inquiries about co-sponsoring or co-hosting Shrier’s lecture. This silence from University was just the canary in the coal mine of what was to come.
Some time before Shrier’s scheduled visit, the event was made public to the Princeton community. It blew up. Shrier was condemned with every hateful label under the sun. Social media feeds were flooded with attacks, some violent, targeted at Shrier, the Tory, and me personally. Princeton-focused online forums became platforms for anti-conservative hate and several members of the Tory were verbally harassed going about our daily routine on campus. To be associated with the Shrier event converted us to into persona non-gratas on campus. In modern parlance, we were “canceled.”
Instead of standing by our side and affirming their commitment to free speech, the University proved derelict. Because of a series of bureaucratic hurdles, some related to Covid, and insufficient backing, including guarantees of our physical safety despite threats to the event, the event was hosted at a private, off-campus location secured by the town of Princeton police. Though Princeton is home to perhaps the greatest academic champions of free speech, including Professors Robert George and Keith Whittington among others, and adopted the laudable Chicago principles of free expression, the University does not effectively support an environment of open inquiry. Student attendees at our event were reasonably afraid to be seen or heard on the event video recording and requested assurance that their presence at the event — their willingness to hear a divergent opinion — would remain private. The concerns of Princeton students are not ones of students living in a free and open community. If this is Princeton, then what of other universities?
For the average Princeton student, the lasting impression of Shrier’s lecture was likely not a new perspective on a political issue. This student likely came to a very different conclusion: if I share an unfashionable view, I will be canceled. Even if Shrier brought a student to reconsider his or her belief, that student would fear sharing it in social settings, class, or perhaps eventually, in the political arena. It could be that Shrier’s visit will lead to further limitations of political discourse on campus, precisely the opposite of the intended effect. While I am proud to have hosted Shrier and introduced her views into our college echo chamber, I recognize that the event’s full success could only have come with University support that was beyond my control.
For the event to have been successful in expanding the conversation, the University ought to have taken a public stance in support of the event’s goal. For one, the University should have joined in co-hosting the event following our communication that we were being threatened for our belief in open inquiry. And this should be made a matter of policy. In addition to sponsoring and hosting a catered protest event to “build a more inclusive campus community” for those offended by Shrier, as they did, the University should have also called for the inclusion of conservatives in the campus community. This move is not important because conservatives require the validation of their superiors — indeed, we should be wary of habituating victimization culture — but because of the message it sends to students. If the University actively stood up for free speech when it mattered, students would take the cue. University administrators must make use of their power to protect free speech if students are to genuinely enjoy an open environment. Let this be instructive to universities across the country.
To be clear, I am not calling for limitations on criticism or a platform for every position. Certain opinions demand criticism and don’t deserve a platform, but that determination ought to come through a public hearing rather than groupthink. Invited speakers’ ideas should be challenged, not shut down. It is when criticism becomes too uniform and consequences for dissent become too severe, that the line between criticism and censorship fades. And censorship belies the University’s purpose as a truth-seeking institution. To sustain a culture of free speech on campus, Universities must stand by minority voices and, in doing so, lower the costs of dissent.
Our situation at Princeton is not unique. Whenever a speaker is “canceled,” as was the case with Charles Murray at Middlebury in 2017, or a student is bullied for his or her beliefs, as has been documented at Harvard in 2020, free speech is undermined, irrespective what policies are on the books. Princeton and other universities must recognize that the Chicago principles and the occasional press release are not enough to uphold free speech on campus. Universities need to put their weight behind students and groups who hold minority opinions on campus. If university presidents and administrators do not become champions of free speech themselves in this late hour, they might soon find themselves in the same situation as Shrier found herself at Princeton: canceled.
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