By Donald Gilpin

Facing the suspension of several dozen federal government research grants, Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber is asserting the University’s commitment to academic freedom and to adherence to due process rights.

In an email to the Princeton University community last week Eisgruber announced that the University had received notifications from government agencies, including the Department of Energy, NASA, and the Defense Department, that they were suspending a number of research grants.

The rationale for the government suspensions was not clear, Eisgruber said, and in an April 6 “All Things Considered” interview with NPR’s Asma Khalid, he noted, “We have not received any communication from the government that explains why these grants were suspended or any requests to do anything in response to the suspensions.”

The Daily Caller, a right-wing online news organization, reported that the government was conducting an ongoing investigation of antisemitism on campus, involving complaints lodged over alleged antisemitism during the pro-Palestine demonstrations on the Princeton University campus last spring. The Daily Caller also cited the sum of $210 million being withheld, almost half of the University’s $456 million in grants and contracts from government sources in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

“Princeton will comply with the law,” Eisgruber wrote in his April 1 email. “We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism. Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this University.”

In similar actions against other universities, the federal government is reviewing about $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to Harvard University, and it has suspended $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University, based on Columbia’s handling of last spring’s pro-Palestine demonstrations and allegations of antisemitism. Last month the federal government also announced that it was withholding $175 million in funding for the University of Pennsylvania because it allowed a transgender woman to participate on its women’s swimming and diving team in the 2021-2022 season.

In Sunday’s NPR interview Eisgruber responded to a question about his warning in a March 21 essay in The Atlantic that recent threats to federal funding at universities are “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.”

He highlighted two aspects of the threats, first describing the threat to the “compact between government and universities,” in which research on behalf of the American people helps to create America’s “preeminence in science and engineering,” making the country stronger and its universities “the best in the world.”

Even more important, he said, is the threat to academic freedom, and he cited Columbia, where the government threatened to withdraw funding from medical science and biomedical research. “If the government starts using the clout it gets from the funding it provides to sciences and engineering to invade that academic freedom, it will compromise things that are fundamental to the excellence of American universities and that are really integral to the pursuit of knowledge and the strength of our society,” he said.

Eisgruber went on to suggest that Princeton was unlikely to be making concessions. “We believe it’s important to defend academic freedom, and that’s not something that can be compromised,” he stated.

He went on to point out the severity of the potential cuts to the University’s research endeavors. “A lot of these federal funds that were affected have to do with things that are actually priorities not only for Princeton University, but for the American government and indeed for this administration,” he said, citing research in machine learning, quantum science, and fusion.

Reiterating the importance of the partnership between government and universities, Eisgruber added, “If that partnership gets interrupted, if we can’t pursue these particular grants on these subjects, it’s going to diminish the kind of research that we can do that makes a difference in terms of these priorities that universities and the government have identified as urgent.”

He went on to note additional effects of the uncertainty that will result for students suffering from lack of funding for research careers. “One of the things that I’m especially worried about is a disruption of that talent pipeline that has been so important to the United States’ leadership in the world,” he said.

Noting that she hadn’t heard “a widespread chorus” from other universities echoing Eisgruber’s message, Khalid asked him, “What might it mean for you all at Princeton to potentially stand alone?”

Eisgruber responded, “It’s essential that I speak out on behalf of this and that we stand up for these principles.” He cited statements from other universities and a statement from the board of the Association of American Universities, which he chairs, reaffirming its support for academic freedom and pointing out the threats arising from the withdrawal of government funding to universities.

“I think these principles … are widely shared at other universities,” he said. “I think there is growing recognition of the need to stand firmly for them, and I expect there will be other presidents and other universities that are doing so alongside us.”