Consistency matters in campus free speech debates

Last week, the Department of English hosted Mohammed El-Kurd, a left-wing writer and anti-Israel activist, for its annual Edward W. Said ’57 Memorial Lecture. El-Kurd, a 24-year-old columnist for The Nation, has a long history of making incendiary anti-Israel statements. His past comparisons of Jewish Israelis to “Nazis,” his praise for the Second Intifada, and his defense of a University of Southern California student who said she wanted to “kill” Zionists are just a few examples. El-Kurd’s past statements are obscene and depraved, and his searing antiIsrael views, as shown, obviously verge into blatant antisemitism. In addition, both El-Kurd’s contemptible past commentary and his raucous campus appearance on Feb. 8 clearly demonstrate his preference for brazen prejudice and circus-like provocation over serious intellectual engagement. Much of the campus’s response to El-Kurd’s appearance was jus- tified and reasonable. El-Kurd’s views were harshly condemned by many Jewish students and the leaders of both of the University’s Jewish chaplaincies. But in their understandable frustration with the English department’s decision to give El-Kurd a platform, some students appeared to urge that important aspects of institutional neutrality to be set aside in order to elicit official condemnations of El-Kurd and his appearance on campus. A letter, authored by Alexandra Orbuch ’25 and reportedly signed by over 40 students, called on the English department to “openly denounce” El-Kurd and “condemn” its own event.

While the letter’s signatories professed “full support” for the robust freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry protections contained within Section 1.1.3. of Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, they overlooked the part of Section 1.1.3. that affirms that “it is for the individual members of the University community” and “not for the University as an institution” to judge whether speech is “offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” The English department, as a constituent institution of the University, has no business issuing statements or taking official positions on speech-related issues.

Of course, the English department’s actual commitment to institutional neutrality is nonexistent. The acting department chair’s claim that “the Department as a whole does not issue statements,” offered in advance of El-Kurd’s appearance, is laughable and easily proven untrue, given that its website features a highly contestable statement taking ideological positions on racism and colonialism in literature. Even so, the English department’s obvious hypocrisy is not an excuse for community members — who are ostensibly committed to a free and open campus environment — to themselves advocate for further breaches of institutional neutrality. As others have eloquently expressed in this publication’s pages before, a steadfast dedication to upholding institutional neutrality is an essential and inextricable aspect of the University’s stated commitment to freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression. In short, without consistent faithfulness to principles of institutional neutrality, Princeton compromises its ability to fulfill its truth-seeking mission.

It would have been wrong for the English department to denounce and condemn its own event, just as it was wrong for the dean of the School of Public and International Affairs to send an institution-wide memo decrying Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal as “dangerous,” and wrong for the classics department to issue an official statement denouncing a professor’s protected speech as “fundamentally incompatible with our mission and values as educators.” The deplorable nature of El-Kurd’s past statements and the widespread violations of institutional neutrality elsewhere at Princeton do not justify attempts by those who profess a commitment to free speech and open inquiry to abandon those principles when they feel it suits them.

Rather, as the University of Chicago’s renowned Kalven Report notes, abridgments of institutional neutrality must be carefully limited to “exceptional” situations where a university’s mission is at risk or academic freedom is itself under threat. ElKurd’s appearance, while highly inflammatory and understandably offensive to many, does not meet those exceedingly high standards. vol. cxlvii editor-in-chief

Instead of clamoring for institution-wide censures and official condemnations, we as students are called to vigorously debate and critically engage with those whose opinions we find abhorrent or objectionable. Indeed, this is what several attendees at the El-Kurd event sought to do. For those of us who are truly committed to building a university that consistently upholds freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression, such a method of serious and critical engagement represents the only principled approach to challenging anti-intellectual provocateurs like El-Kurd.

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Values

Continued from page 1 might.

Conservatives such as Hazony argue that the University should define its own purpose for students, whereas liberals push for students to define the purpose of the University on their own. But now that the University has a greater liberal influence than before, conservatives are caught in a pickle. Hazony disagrees with the direction of the University, but conservative ideological commitments prevent conservatives from changing it on their own.

For conservatives to win, the Princeton administration must recognize their ideological perspective — which doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. And so they sink into despair.

Based on his interviews with alumni, including Hazony, Walter notes that conservatives are “apt to speak in pessimistic — or even apocalyptic — tones about the future of the place they once loved.”

He notes several specific complaints that depict a severe unhappiness with the direction of the University. McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Robert George notes that “the kids come in pre-indoctrinated.” Sev Onyshkevych ’83 wrote that conservatives are “excluded, explicitly, and with malice.” And Matt Schmitz ’08 says that elite universities like Princeton preach “a new creed — called ‘social justice,’ ‘wokeism,’ or ‘the successor ideology.’”

If we bought this theory, we might say that Princeton has a terrible habit of political profiling: that it has a vitriolic agenda that pre-selects students with the right ideas, purposely oppresses those who engage in “wrongthink,” and pushes the new American religion of wokeness upon everybody. Conservatives attempt to justify their inability to win battles on campus by suggesting the dominant ideology is oppressive to any debate at all — “woke neo-Marxism,” to be exact.

But this misunderstands what the dominant forces on campus are. Let’s take one of the most criticized apostles of the modern University: Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta ’06, who states that students need “the tools to tear down this place and make it a better one.” Though my grasp on neo-marxism is tenuous at best, I feel confident that this sentiment is very much not in that category. It is a liberalist view of education: Students should use what they learn here to work towards creating a new, informed-by-reason-andnot-by-tradition, vision of Ivory Tower. Padilla Peralta’s argument encourages us to think entirely for ourselves, and build a brand new institution with a brand new purpose.

Unfortunately for conservatives who like to complain, their values can fit within the liberal theory. If each generation of students chooses their values, we could choose values of free speech, of historical preservation, and of a values-focused curriculum. Yet even still, this will not be enough for the conservative movement, which can only win when the University itself, not just the student body, prioritizes these principles. If conservatives wanted to wage a war of persuasion within the liberal conception of the university, they would face a difficult battle. But a debate can be unequal and still be fair. Instead of heralding the doom of conservatism on campus or succumbing to the depression of losing the home-turf advantage in the debate over the fate of Princeton education, conservatives need to stay and engage with the discourse they have. I am not blind to the problems within the University: I think we could do a much better job of listening to diverse viewpoints and welcoming and creating intelligent discourse, both improvements that conservatives tend to associate with their mission. Though I’m not sure Princeton did such a laudable job at either of those pursuits 50 years ago, I recognize how they could help restore Princeton to an ideal of the past — a place where one can develop the “common sense philosophy” for which John Witherspoon strived, to help “guide a life of virtue.” So what can conservatives do to make sure their mission lives on? For one, they can continue to center their disputes with the University as academic disagreements rather than cries of unfairness and maltreatment. The debates over key University policies are too central to our development to ignore, and conservatives have a responsibility to openly discuss this question with the “other side.” Otherwise, Princeton risks becoming a safe haven for only one type of thought, while it should be a beacon of opportunity for people of disparate opinions to have the opportunity to engage in verbal combat with each other.

Abigail Rabieh is a prospective history concentrator and sophomore from Cambridge, MA. She is the Head Opinion Editor at the ‘Prince’ and can be reached by email at arabieh@princeton.edu or on Twitter at @AbigailRabieh.