Princeton Walks Away from Chicago By Ramesh Ponnuru
In 2015, Princeton University adopted the “University of Chicago principles” on free speech. Edward Yingling and Stuart Taylor Jr. have an article lamenting the way the university has been betraying those principles lately, and in an underhanded way. It has been punishing a professor for expressing his conservative views and then reinterpreting its rules to allow those actions.
For more, see this letter decrying the university’s behavior from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
Dear Member of the Board:
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, now in its 26th year, has
unwaveringly advocated for robust academic freedom and strong
protection of campus freedom of expression. It is for this reason that we
once more bring to your attention and to the attention of the public the
way in which the Princeton administration has violated its own stated
commitment to free speech in the matter of Cotsen Professor in the
Humanities Joshua Katz. At stake is whether Princeton University will
maintain the principles of freedom of expression that it has publicly
announced and celebrated.
The administration’s severe and pervasive attacks on Professor Katz
following the publication of his July 8, 2020, essay in Quillette call out for
the intervention of the Board of Trustees. The board’s fiduciary duty of
care for the institution requires this.
At a time when “cancel culture” and campus intolerance of intellectual
diversity have drawn the attention of the public and of lawmakers, the
board’s failure to intervene would seriously jeopardize Princeton’s
reputation. Indeed, when no less a leader than former president Barack
Obama has decried cancel culture, it is deplorable that Princeton now
apparently embraces it at the top level of its administration. (I quote from
President Obama’s October 29, 2019, interview with Yara Shahidi: “One
danger I see among young people, particularly on college campuses . . .
Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or
used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself,
cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’”) Princeton’s
cancel culture has arguably gone a step further—into harassment and
defamation.
In case the facts of the matter of Joshua Katz are not already known to
you, I respectfully call your attention to a few of the key events since July 8, 2020.
In his Quillette essay, Professor Katz dissented from several proposals by a group of faculty,
proposals that he found, quite plausibly, to be illegal and unethical. The administration’s
immediate reaction to what Professor Katz wrote was President Eisgruber’s condemnation and
the statement of university spokesperson Ben Chang that the administration “will be looking into
the matter further.” To his credit, President Eisgruber retreated from this ostensible threat in his
July 20 article in the Daily Princetonian.
Despite the fact that President Eisgruber declared in that July 20 article, “Our policies, however,
protect Katz’s freedom to say what he did,” within a few months Princeton, apparently with the
blessing of the administration, undermined the commitment President Eisgruber made to free
speech.
In a presentation still to be found on Princeton University’s website, “To Be Known and Heard,”
an excerpt from Professor Katz’s Quillette article is displayed alongside scenes of minstrel
shows and the words of the racist scientist William Shockley. Professor Katz’s excerpt is held up
for harsh criticism from two other Princeton professors in a way that is clearly designed to label
him a racist. The words of Professor Katz’s article were initially edited to make him appear to be
intolerant of black students. This Princeton website presentation, which was produced and
disseminated by two Princeton departments and Princeton’s Office of the Vice Provost for
Institutional Equity & Diversity and the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life may well
have crossed the line into defamation. It is important to note that this website is copyrighted in
your name, “2021 The Trustees of Princeton University.”
The website stands as not only grotesquely unprofessional behavior on the part of the Princeton
administration, but it also puts Princeton itself in the position of violating its own rules by
severely harassing a member of its academic community whose speech the president declared to
be protected. It is hard to imagine that the trustees of Princeton University agree that this
vilification of the Cotsen Professor in the Humanities properly represents them and the
university. We respectfully advise, therefore, that it is the board’s duty to direct the
administration to cease and desist from this damaging assault on a member of the Princeton
faculty and to tender an official apology to Cotsen Professor in the Humanities Joshua Katz.
Most recently, eight distinguished members of the Princeton faculty, acting as whistleblowers,
submitted a formal complaint against this pattern of harassment and defamation to the Office of
the Provost. These professors called for a full investigation of the treatment of Professor Katz.
Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Michele Minter rejected their request. The
rejection of this faculty complaint should occasion further alarm among trustees. Although
Princeton distinguished itself in 2015 by being the first university to adopt the Chicago
Principles on Freedom of Expression, Vice Provost Minter now claims that the much–acclaimed
Princeton rule headed “Statement on Freedom of Expression” (University–wide Regulation 1.1.3)
protects a Princeton faculty member such as Professor Katz (or a student) from being harassed
for his or her speech only if that harassment is “based on a protected characteristic” of the
speaker (such as race, creed, color, or sex). This is an obvious, intentional, and dramatically
limiting misstatement of the clear language of Regulation 1.1.3. That rule neither contains nor
incorporates the phrase “based on a protected characteristic.” Vice Provost Minter has taken the
phrase from another rule, Regulation 1.2.2, effectively denying Professor Katz the protection due him.
him and eviscerating overall Princeton’s protection of freedom of expression. If the board does
not intervene, Princeton will have made a mockery of its much–touted commitment to freedom of
expression: Princeton will have articulated a policy by which those who wish to harass dissenters
from campus orthodoxy may do so with impunity. Vice Provost Minter, moreover, denies that
the website that defames Joshua Katz is an official representation of the university. This denial is
breathtaking in the effrontery of its claim that a website bearing Princeton’s trademark and, as
noted above, a copyright in the name of the Princeton Board of Trustees is not an official
representation of the university.
What we now witness is retaliation, aided and abetted by the Princeton administration, against a
member of the faculty for expressing his opinion on a matter of campus politics. As one of the
eight professors observed, “We fear that anyone of us can be treated in the same fashion and face
similar abuse by members of the University’s administration. The danger of retribution which
affects all of us will have a pervasive chilling effect on free speech at Princeton.” It appears a
“red line” has been crossed, and unless the trustees intervene, Princeton will forfeit all semblance
of its principles of free expression.
Accordingly, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni recommends that the Board of
Trustees launch a full and transparent investigation of the abrogation of the free speech rights of
Professor Katz and ensure appropriate redress for the damage that Princeton has done to his
image and his role on campus.
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