Listen, my Princeton, and you shall hear
Of two websites Eisgruber held dear.
One he defended disappeared without trace.
The other, deceiving, remains a disgrace.
In March 2022, the Academic Freedom Alliance wrote President Eisgruber a public letter. The AFA states its mission as “protecting the rights of faculty members at colleges and universities to speak, instruct, and publish without fear of sanction or punishment.” The AFA letter, authored by Keith Whittington (then Princeton’s William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics), raised grave concerns about the University administration’s treatment of Joshua Katz (then Princeton’s Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics).
In 2021, the University administration had created the “To Be Known and Heard: Systemic Racism and Princeton University” presentation. One of its chapters depicted Katz as racist. This presentation became part of the University’s mandatory orientation for the entering Class of 2025. The AFA and other commentators objected to the University administration’s actions as retaliation against Katz for his outspoken views on campus politics. One explicitly found the presentation defamatory.
Whittington presented Eisgruber with these AFA concerns:
We are not aware of any other example of a university systematically denouncing a sitting member of its own faculty in such a way. It is not an example that should be followed or repeated if universities are to remain vibrant centers of intellectual freedom.
In his response to Whittington, Eisgruber praised the “Known and Heard” presentation and defended its depictions of Katz. He further proclaimed the presentation “teaching material” fully protected against censorship under the University’s Statement on Freedom of Expression. He also noted that the presentation was “maintained on a University website for educational purposes.”
Eisgruber’s response to Whittington drew detailed and sharp criticism from Princetonians for Free Speech, which concluded:
The sad truth that now stands revealed is that Princeton’s leadership has betrayed the University’s free speech rule and its heritage. . . . Nothing short of widespread publicity about this debacle and an all-out push by alumni, faculty, and students who respect the University’s core values – including free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity – can save it.
Separately, Sergiu Klainerman (Princeton’s Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics and the original sponsor of Princeton’s Statement on Freedom of Expression) and seven anonymous Princeton faculty formally complained to the University over the “Known and Heard” presentation. Klainerman explained the reasons behind the faculty complaint in an email to Eisgruber. He stated in part:
[I]f a sitting university professor can have his views distorted and be vilified on an official university website, then both principles [of academic freedom and fair treatment] have been violated. We fear that anyone of us can be treated in the same fashion and face similar abuse by members of the University’s administration. This danger of retribution which affects us all will have a pervasive chilling effect on free speech at Princeton.
The University administration promptly dismissed the faculty complaint. The ruling even heralded the presentation as “an example of Princeton’s commitment to free speech and expression.” [Emphasis in original.] The eight faculty appealed this ruling to Princeton’s Committee on Conference and Faculty Appeal. It held unanimously for the faculty.
Eisgruber, however, overrode the CCFA recommendation. In his July 8, 2022 four-sentence email to Klainerman, Eisgruber cited a secret “additional review” (whose substance remains concealed) and declared the “Known and Heard” presentation fully protected by Princeton’s Statement on Freedom of Expression.
Eisgruber stonewalled Klainerman’s earnest attempts for a substantive explanation of the “additional review.” He stated disingenuously on July 14 that he had given Klainerman “all of the information the University can share with you about the matter.” Eisgruber further informed him that the faculty complaint “has been adjudicated by the University and is now closed.” Eisgruber later cut off all communication with Klainerman on the matter, brusquely asserting, “[I]t would serve no purpose to prolong this exchange.”
Klainerman followed with this public appeal:
[T]he main issue is no longer the firing of Katz but rather the abuse of power and likely cover-up for which we, the small group of faculty members, complainants, and CCFA members, are powerless to redress. I therefore call on the Princeton alumni to take up their responsibility as the real trustees of their beloved university, and to help expand our little faculty mutiny into a true revolution.
Whatever his intentions, President Eisgruber would serve the Princeton community by immediate release of the “additional review,” redacted as necessary to prevent disclosure of participants’ names not already public. All Princetonians deserve this document's full substance so they may judge Eisgruber’s assertion that the Statement on Freedom of Expression absolved the presentation and its authors.
No changes to the “Known and Heard” presentation followed regarding Katz or other content. No changes, that is, until January 2025, when its URL (http://knownandheard.princeton.edu) began to return “Page not found.” This digital book burning took place unseen, without explanation or even announcement.
Why did Eisgruber’s administration thrust “Known and Heard” into the Memory Hole? Eisgruber’s slippery defense of the “Known and Heard” presentation remains posted on the Office of the President's website. Recently, a University spokesperson explained, “The Office of Campus Engagement decided to remove the site, given that it had not been used in programming or for educational purposes in several years.” The presentation’s unceremonious extinguishment signals a tacit admission by Eisgruber and company that the “Known and Heard” presentation had deep flaws and is no longer worth defending.
Still standing, but without a word of defense by its sponsor or President Eisgruber, is the profoundly flawed and damaging “John Witherspoon” essay by the Princeton & Slavery Project. This essay subverts Princeton’s mission for “the pursuit of truth . . . and the transmission of knowledge and learning to society at large.”
The official public launch of the Princeton & Slavery Project in 2017 occasioned a weekend symposium by the University, including praise from Eisgruber for the Project’s “rigorous academic standards.” The Project’s website lists among its “Princeton Partners” the University’s Office of the Provost, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, the Department of African American Studies, and the Department of History. The website itself has a “princeton.edu” URL. The University’s endorsement of the Project gives it a halo of presumed credibility. The Project, however, violated that presumption.
From its inception, the Princeton & Slavery Project has featured the “John Witherspoon” essay. In addition to being Princeton’s essential early president (1768 - 1794) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon educated James Madison (“Father of the Constitution”) in the Scottish Common Sense philosophy, Reformed theology and political theory, mixed government theory, moral philosophy, and natural rights.
The Project’s Witherspoon essay, however, created – and continues to foster – a tragic misunderstanding within the University community and beyond on the true measure of Witherspoon’s relation to slavery. This is deeply troubling. My 2023 complaint to the CPUC Judicial Committee laid out the wrongdoings of the “John Witherspoon” essay. These include its betrayal of the University’s central purposes for “the pursuit of truth . . . and the transmission of knowledge and learning” and its violation of rules against use of University websites to post “malicious . . . or defamatory content.” To date, the Judicial Committee has taken no action on this complaint.
Outrageously, the Project refuses to acknowledge new scholarly evidence about Witherspoon. Even the author of the Witherspoon essay has changed her views and now favors giving Witherspoon “the benefit of doubt” on slavery (video 8:39 - 8:56). But the Princeton & Slavery Project gives its readers no notice of these matters. In her 2017 essay, for example, the author condemned Witherspoon for not favoring the immediate emancipation of slaves. But in 2024, she disclosed some of her Ph.D. research on John Chavis, the free black man Witherspoon had personally taught in 1792. Chavis went on to become a prominent educator and minister in North Carolina. She quoted Chavis confiding to a friend in 1836:
I am clearly of the opinion that immediate emancipation would be to entail the greatest earthly curse upon my bretheren according to the flesh that could be conferred upon them especially in a Country like ours.
The “John Witherspoon” essay reviews John Chavis and his experience with Witherspoon. But it still gives nary a clue that – more than 40 years after Witherspoon’s death – the black man Chavis also opposed unconditional “immediate emancipation” of slaves, the same position for which the essay had unjustly vilified Witherspoon.
To their dishonor, neither Princeton’s trustees, the Eisgruber’s administration, nor the past or current directors of the Project have acted even to acknowledge, much less address, the multiple false, misleading, and damaging depictions of Witherspoon by the Princeton & Slavery Project. This, despite multiple efforts to bring to their attention these wrongful representations by the Witherspoon essay.
Princeton’s established rules forbid using a University website to transmit “malicious, harassing, or defamatory content.” In addition to the Witherspoon essay’s defamations, the Project’s continued publication of demonstrated falsehoods against Witherspoon is malicious. Despite these clear prohibitions, the “John Witherspoon” essay openly violates the University’s rules without consequence.
I submit three public challenges. First, to Tera Hunter, the most recent Director of the Princeton & Slavery Project: Show the complaint on the trustworthiness of the “John Witherspoon” essay to be without foundation or update the Project website to make amends for misleading its readers on Witherspoon. Second, to President Eisgruber: Release the “additional review” immediately and, should Professor Hunter fail the first challenge, invoke the University’s applicable rules and order the “John Witherspoon” essay removed from all University websites. Third, to Chair Louise Sams ’79 and the rest of Princeton’s Board of Trustees: If you authorize a statement to “contextualize” John Witherspoon’s relationship to slavery, ensure not only that it faithfully tells the truth but that it also tells the truth of how the Princeton & Slavery Project misled the Princeton community about Witherspoon.
Princeton has fallen into the grips of a crisis of leadership that must be addressed. Meanwhile, the Princeton & Slavery Project’s “John Witherspoon” essay continues as a poisoned well to the unsuspecting reader who relies on it for guidance on Witherspoon, his legacy for us, and the debate over the meaning and fate of his statue. Such a victim is the recent “Flood the Princeton canon.” Much to the author’s credit, however, is his penultimate sentence: “Princeton must commit to telling its history truthfully.” In that, I join his call. Will Eisgruber, the Director of the Princeton & Slavery Project, and Princeton’s Trustees show the moral courage to follow suit?
So, Tigers, hold to the line that’s true.
Repel false witness to the end.
Fight, fight for ev'ry yard,
Princeton's honor to defend!
Bill Hewitt is a member of the Princeton Class of 1974.
