Academic Freedom under Threat at Princeton

National Review Online

Monday, May 23, 2022

 

Joshua Katz is an eminent classics professor who holds degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Harvard, and is the Cotsen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. But he refused to bow to the new “anti-racist” orthodoxy, and for that transgression, Princeton is apparently preparing to strip him of tenure and terminate his employment. This act would be a shameful repudiation of what is supposed to be one of the core missions of a great university — and Princeton alumni and donors should make their voices heard while the board of trustees deliberates on Katz’s fate. 

 

Katz became persona non grata at Princeton in the perfervid and rageful summer of 2020, when he published an essay in Quillette in which he referred to a defunct student group, the Black Justice League, as “a small local terrorist organization.” Strong phrasing, but hardly worthy of a raised eyebrow in an academic environment in which professors freely and regularly denounce conservatives and Republicans as fascists. The group in 2015 had occupied the university president’s office, and Katz noted that the group “went after one fellow black student with particular vigor, verbally vilifying her in public at every possible opportunity, calling her all sorts of unsavory epithets and accusing her of ‘performing white supremacy.’” 

 

The university’s president Christopher Eisgruber publicly denounced Katz and made him something of an Emmanuel Goldstein figure, an official hate target. But though a university spokesman vowed a formal investigation would follow, apparently it never got off the ground. Katz is a tenured professor, and Princeton is bound to respect his right to express himself. 

 

The twist arrived in February 2021, when the Daily Princetonian dug up more details about an unrelated Katz controversy: Some 15 years ago, he had a consensual affair with a student, which is against Princeton rules. After a formal investigation, in which the ex-student in question declined to participate, Katz accepted as a disciplinary measure an unpaid year off. The matter was closed in 2018, but the university reopened the case this year after the Princetonian report, which among other claims reported that two women Katz had taken out to dinner felt uncomfortable about it. 

 

Faculty Dean Gene A. Jarrett, according to the New York Times, issued a ten-page report last November that upbraided Katz for not being sufficiently forthcoming about the affair — he is now said to have discouraged the student both from seeking therapy and from participating in the initial investigation — and recommended his termination. The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that Eisgruber agreed and took the recommendation to the board. 

 

What Princeton is preparing to do gives off a revolting odor of using a long-settled matter as a pretext to punish one of its most distinguished professors because he dared to challenge race orthodoxy. The impression Princeton is creating is that elite institutions are now moving into punishing dissent from the leftist catechism by veering off into character assassination. The potential for a catastrophic chilling effect on academic freedom of thought is obvious. Princeton should take a deep breath and rethink whether appeasing the mob of race obsessives is worth the reputational damage to a nearly 300-year-old institution.