What Princeton’s President Got Wrong About Free Speech and Defamation

By Bill Hewitt

Sunday, September 28, 2025

 

September 30 marks the publication of a new book by Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right. For those who plan to read the book that ostensibly defends the culture of free speech on campuses, it is worth reviewing the author’s abysmal record on protecting free expression. The cruel irony for Princeton is that Eisgruber himself created and enforced a wicked doctrine. A threat to all on campus, this “Eisgruber Doctrine” allows his administrators to defame those they disfavor, yet evade university discipline. Rather tellingly, Eisgruber and the Board of Trustees have turned deaf ears to calls to disclose a secret report underlying the Eisgruber Doctrine.

 

Princeton’s Board of Trustees should fire President Eisgruber. Indeed, they should have done so months ago. Here’s why. In 2022, Eisgruber wrongly dismissed a formal complaint by eight Princeton faculty members regarding the university’s mistreatment of an outspoken classics professor, Joshua Katz. Eisgruber’s administrators had defamed Katz in the notorious (and now memory-holed) 2021 presentation for students, “To Be Known and Heard: Systemic Racism and Princeton University.” Princeton later stripped Katz of tenure and fired him, a decision drawing widespread condemnation because it appeared to be motivated by animus against Katz for his protected speech.

 

Eisgruber used a still-secret “additional review” to justify blocking the faculty complaint, asserting that the report established that Princeton’s free-expression policies protected the authors of the presentation. Eisgruber never offered much explanation. Nor could he, as the free-expression rule he cited explicitly excludes defamation from protected speech.

 

Since he’s a former law-school professor and Supreme Court clerk, Eisgruber should know that the presentation defamed Katz. In the emphatic words of Princeton professor Robert George:

 

“There is no question in my mind as to whether Katz was defamed. . . . Nor am I in any doubt as to whether the underlying motives were malicious. The bowdlerization of Professor Katz’s words was done with the evident intention of depicting him as racist — which he is not. The only real questions are who is responsible, and what is the proper disciplinary action under the university’s rules.”

 

Moreover, Eisgruber set forth a specious claim that the university could not disclose any substance of this secret report beyond its purported conclusion that Princeton’s freedom of expression rule protected the presentation; he said, “[M]y message of July 8th provides all of the information the university can share with you about the matter.” By contrast, an earlier dismissal of the complaint by another senior administrator provided a lengthier, albeit still unconvincing, explanation. Eisgruber continues to shield this mysterious document from an open scrutiny that it cannot withstand.

 

Eisgruber’s obstruction of an official faculty complaint seemingly violates the university’s requirement for “honest and straightforward” conduct in internal processes. Eisgruber’s breach is worse conduct than what forced out Harvard’s and Stanford’s presidents, who entangled themselves in academic controversies that preceded their time in the top office and did not directly involve their official daily obligations. And so Eisgruber must go. In failing to remove him, Princeton’s trustees have violated their fiduciary duties.

 

Over six months ago, I publicly disclosed Eisgruber’s wrongs on these matters and called for his dismissal. Neither Eisgruber nor Princeton’s trustees responded. In March 2025, I called upon Princeton’s Board of Trustees to release Eisgruber’s secret report. In April, I called upon the board to investigate Eisgruber’s malfeasance and fully disclose the results. These calls remain unanswered. (Further, the university’s judicial committee wrongly refuses jurisdiction for the formal complaint I filed this past April against the defamation and firing of Katz.)

 

Justice Brandeis observed, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Toward that end, I have now filed a formal complaint with Princeton’s accrediting agency, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Its authority includes ensuring that a university fulfills the commission’s standards, and complies with the university’s own policies and procedures. Salient among the commission’s standards is the requirement for “Ethics and Integrity,” including that a university “adhere to its policies, and represent itself truthfully.” Potential sanctions include (1) public designation for “non-compliance” and “adverse actions,” (2) probation, and, ultimately, (3) withdrawal of accreditation. 

 

Already, Princeton is obligated to provide the MSCHE by April 2026 with a report “providing the status of any and all developments related to any investigations conducted by the institution or by state, federal, or other government agencies related to the Commission’s action of May 20, 2024 (Standard II).” Princeton should make all its responses in this matter and the new MSCHE complaint open for public examination.   

 

Princeton’s Board of Trustees can act immediately to release the secret report and announce commencement of its own investigation into the allegations against Eisgruber. In doing so, Princeton could begin the necessary rehabilitation called for last February by Sir Niall Ferguson:

 

“I want to say on the record here on the Princeton campus that I believe the way that Joshua Katz has been treated by this University is an utter disgrace, and it’s a stain on the reputation of Princeton that will have to be one day effaced — and may that day come soon.”