"Eisgruber is a man of principle— too many principles"
Ablatant attempt to suppress academic freedom and enforce ideological hegemony is currently unfolding at Princeton University. The prominence of the key players — with Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber on one side, and classics scholar Joshua Katz, a chaired professor and the winner of numerous awards for teaching excellence, on the other — has drawn widespread attention to the controversy.
On July 4, 2020, approximately 300 Princeton faculty members sent a petition to President Eisgruber that began, “Anti-Blackness is foundational to America.” They demanded that Princeton institute a long list of reforms, including extra pay and an additional sabbatical for junior faculty “of color.” Among the other demands was that the university issue a formal apology to the Black Justice League, a black student group active on campus between 2014 and 2016, and that it “credit and incentivize anti-racist student activism.”
Of even greater significance, the faculty petition demanded the creation of a faculty committee that would oversee the investigation of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of the faculty. Crucially, racism would be defined by the committee.
Four days later, Katz published his own declaration in Quillette. He argued that differentiation between faculty members on the basis of pigmentation alone would violate US civil rights statutes and “erode even further public confidence in how elite institutions of higher learning operate.”
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