Presidents of prestigious universities often make outrageous decisions inconsistent with such bedrock values as freedom of expression and providing the accused with traditional American due process. The shameful manner in which Princeton University fired Joshua Katz, a distinguished scholar and winner of several teaching awards, leads me to consider Christopher Eisgruber to be the worst Ivy League president, eclipsing even the earlier shenanigans of Yale’s Peter Salovey.
For those unfamiliar with the case, Prof. Katz was fired over alleged improprieties related to an offense—having consensual sexual relations with a 21-year-old girl—that took place over 15 years ago (!). Only after Katz started saying things that the Princeton administration did not like did it punish him for that incident. Fully a dozen years after the 2006 transgression, it suspended Katz without pay for one year. Then, in 2020, Katz expressed his disapproval of so-called anti-racist demands made by some members of the Princeton community after the George Floyd killing. That led to a story in The Daily Princetonian about the 2006 incident, prompting the school to reopen the case, accuse Katz of new improprieties related to the incident, and fire him. (See Katz’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal for more details.)
Princeton’s invidious ousting of Katz is objectionable on at least six grounds:
Certain discussions of racial issues are verboten at Princeton, despite university policies to the contrary.
1. It is clearly racist inasmuch as it implicitly asserts that certain discussions of racial issues are verboten at Princeton, despite university policies to the contrary.
2. More generally, it suggests that members of the Princeton community should be at least partially assessed on biological characteristics, such as race, gender, and sexual preference, rather than predominantly on the basis of academic merit and productivity.
3. It exhibits the cowardice of university administrators afraid of offending the fashionably woke progressive leaders of the university community.
4. It shows a hostility towards unfettered academic discourse and is completely inconsistent with Princeton’s fine version of the Chicago Principles celebrating free inquiry and expression, not to mention the First Amendment.
5. Due process standards were ignored—for example, the notion that an accused person cannot be put in double jeopardy (i.e., tried twice for the same offense).
6. It reinforces the rent-seeking behavior of certain members of Princeton University, who are undoubtably given special protection and clout because their politically favored support of minorities has effectively given them privileged status.