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The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
A recent open letter by the Princeton University faculty has provoked concerns, yet again, that
institutions may be encroaching against freedom of thought and expression in their efforts to
protect those who are marginalized by racism.
A lot of attention has already been paid to the letter’s demand that Princeton’s administration
“constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and
discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty,
following a protocol for grievance and appeal to be spelled out in Rules and Procedures of the
Faculty,” but there are a few other demands that also merit further discussion. The faculty
signatories advocate that Princeton “establish a core distribution requirement focused on the
history and legacy of racism in the country and on the campus” and “require and fund each
department to establish a senior thesis prize for research and independent work that is actively
anti-racist or expands our sense of how race is constructed in our society.” A distribution
requirement focused on the “legacy of racism” and a per-department prize for work “that is
actively anti-racist” would add up to a University that privileges a particular point of view –
albeit perhaps a morally correct, or, as many would argue, even necessary, one. This is
contrary to Princeton’s mission, for being a student should be defined by engagement in the
pursuit of truth, a matter over which none can presume to claim certainty or unique authority.
In other words, while students should have the opportunity to be exposed to varying
viewpoints, promoting any one (even one that we may regard as morally necessary) would be
antithetical to the very nature of learning which educational institutions like Princeton are
intended to facilitate. The members of the faculty also demand that the University “remove
questions about misdemeanors and felony convictions from admissions applications, and all
applications to work and/or study at Princeton.” While I do not object to this demand per se, it
is important to note that it is being issued at a time when prospective students’ seats at an elite
university can be withdrawn on the basis of their having engaged in “offensive” speech on
social media. If the administration does decide that applicants’ legal transgressions ought not
jeopardize their admission, I hope that rather than follow in Harvard’s footsteps, it will
commit to similar tolerance towards purported transgressions in the realm of ideas.
So far, however, Princeton’s actions have not been entirely reassuring on that score. In
opposition to the open letter, classics Professor Joshua Katz published an op-ed in Quillette
which referred to Princeton’s Black Justice League as “a small local terrorist organization.” In
response, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber objected “personally and strongly” in The
Daily Princetonian to Katz’s description of the group and accused him of failing to “exercise
[his] right [to free speech] responsibly,” while University spokesperson Ben Chang told the
paper that the administration would “look into the matter further.” Finally, after the free speech
watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) wrote that “Princeton Must
Clarify It Won’t Investigate Joshua Katz for Opinion Piece” and that the “suggestion alone that
such [an investigation] might be forthcoming has serious – and chilling – implications,”
Eisgruber wrote an op-ed declaring that Katz would not be “censored or sanctioned” (although
he did not acknowledge the pledge from Chang which made that declaration necessary).
But even beyond Ben Chang’s statement about looking into the matter further, Eisgruber’s initial
response to Katz was troubling. I certainly understand why he objected to Katz’s use of the
phrase “terrorist organization” to describe the Black Justice League, but he should not have
condemned Katz’s word choice without also affirming his right to speak against the open letter.
Roughly 350 faculty members signed that letter at a time when, across the country, academics
are under enormous pressure to accede to newly prevailing orthodoxies on matters of race; Katz
issued a lone dissent, and the administration brought the weight of its authority to bear on him in
unqualified denunciation. In other words, Eisgruber was as irresponsible in his wielding of
power as he criticized Katz for being in his use of language, placing his institutional finger on the
scales against the very voice and viewpoint that was most in need of the administration’s
protection.
It is an irony of this kind of overreach from those in power that it is often spurred on from below
by those who claim to act with the intent of fighting oppression. For example, on August 6th,
seven students published an op-ed in The Daily Princetonian criticizing the administration’s
decision not to pursue disciplinary action against a student who invoked a racial slur in a
Facebook post but whose conduct was not found to violate Princeton’s Freedom of Expression
policy. Meanwhile, as calls increasingly ring out for people to lose their jobs simply because
they have said what many believe to be the wrong thing, the National Labor Relations Board
recently issued a ruling, in a case involving General Motors, relaxing the standards according to
which “private-sector employers [can] dole out discipline or fire workers for racist, sexist, and
other profane speech or conduct in the context of workplace activism and union-related activity.”
Universities with broader authority to direct students’ thinking and to sanction them and their professors for their words; corporations with greater leeway to fire workers for the way they express themselves — does this really look like a movement aimed at protecting the vulnerable?
Jade Kasoff is a 2017 graduate of the University.
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