Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The Trump administration is
Speaker 1: targeting higher education colleges and universities across the United States.
Speaker 1: It's scrutinizing and criticizing how administrators responded to Hamas's attack
Speaker 1: on Israel on October seventh, twenty twenty three, Israel's response
Speaker 1: to it, and the protest that followed. It's demanding changes
Speaker 1: to the way schools approach free speech on campuses, and
Speaker 1: it's threatening to freeze billions of dollars worth of federal
Speaker 1: funding for research. This is a precarious moment for the academy, worrisome.
Speaker 1: To Christopher Eisgruber, who's the president of Princeton University, one
Speaker 1: of the oldest and highest ranked schools in the US.
Speaker 2: We've never seen the use of federal funding in the
Speaker 2: way that it is being used now to try to
Speaker 2: control universities, and if we really go down that road,
Speaker 2: that is a very dangerous road to go down.
Speaker 1: Icecreuber says. Princeton, like Harford Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: has been notified that some of its federal funding is
Speaker 1: under review. Eisgruber confirmed that to Bloomberg a few hours
Speaker 1: after the Trump administration announced it's reviewing roughly nine billion
Speaker 1: dollars in contracts and grants with Harvard. This funding is vital,
Speaker 1: Ice Grouper says, it has been since World War II.
Speaker 1: It's one element of a partnership between government and academia
Speaker 1: that's led to innovations and inventions and fueled a knowledge
Speaker 1: economy in the US that's been the envy of the world.
Speaker 2: Why is it that's such a huge proportion of Nobel
Speaker 2: Prizes get awarded to Americans? Why is it that the
Speaker 2: best scientists and engineers from all over the world want
Speaker 2: to come to the United States. It's because of this
Speaker 2: extraordinary partnership. We've had here.
Speaker 1: Another threat to that knowledge economy, concern among foreign born
Speaker 1: students and researchers at US colleges and universities that they're
Speaker 1: no longer welcome. I'm David Gura, and this is the
Speaker 1: Big Take from Bloomberg News Today. On the show, Christopher Eisgruber,
Speaker 1: the president of Princeton University, sits down with me for
Speaker 1: a wide ranging conversation about American higher education. We talk
Speaker 1: about free speech, academic freedom, and the Trump administration's cracked
Speaker 1: down on colleges and universities, its impact on students and faculty,
Speaker 1: and the future of research and innovation in the US.
Speaker 1: This interview has been edited and condensed. We're at a
Speaker 1: moment where there aren't many leaders of colleges and universities
Speaker 1: who are willing to speak up or speak out about
Speaker 1: what's happening.
Speaker 2: You are.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for that. Why is that the case. Why
Speaker 1: do you feel it's important to speak up about the
Speaker 1: challenges facing higher education today.
Speaker 2: I think it's important to speak up because there are
Speaker 2: fundamental principles at stake right now. American universities, in my view,
Speaker 2: are the best in the world, and I think the
Speaker 2: best they've ever been, and there are the best they've
Speaker 2: ever been because of their fidelity to certain principles, including
Speaker 2: academic freedom and free speech, and because of a very
Speaker 2: constructive partnership that's existed for about seventy years now between
Speaker 2: American universities and the American government. All that is in
Speaker 2: danger right now, and we have to speak up for
Speaker 2: those principles in order to defend them.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a bit about free speech, which
Speaker 1: is something I know that you've engaged with for the
Speaker 1: entirety of your career, and I'll ask you to put
Speaker 1: it plainly, how do you define free speech in the
Speaker 1: context of a college or university.
Speaker 2: So I think free speech is first of all, the
Speaker 2: lifeblood of a great university. People have to be able
Speaker 2: to raise controversial ideas. You have to have vigorous discussion
Speaker 2: on the campus, and you have to defend it even
Speaker 2: when people are saying things that are very unpopular or
Speaker 2: at times that seem zany to the outside world. Because
Speaker 2: that's how you get at truth, and that's what our
Speaker 2: universities are about, and that's how you educate students and
Speaker 2: prepare them for the world. We believe on our campus
Speaker 2: that people should be free to ouriculate ideas even if
Speaker 2: people find them immral, offensive or wrong headed, and that
Speaker 2: has justice. Brandeis said in a famous concurrence on the
Speaker 2: Court in the nineteen twenties, the remedy for bad speech
Speaker 2: is more speech, not intervention by the government or for
Speaker 2: that matter, by the university administration. Now you do have
Speaker 2: to have what the Supreme Court calls time, place and
Speaker 2: manner regulations, which mean that you can say lots of things.
Speaker 2: People can criticize me, they can criticize the government They
Speaker 2: can say lots of other things on the campus, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that you can pitch tents in an
Speaker 2: encampment or take over a building, whether you're in Washington,
Speaker 2: d c. Or whether you're on the Princeton University campus.
Speaker 1: Over the course of your tenure, you have talked about
Speaker 1: these principles with it seems like every freshman class that
Speaker 1: comes here, is there a universal understanding of them? And
Speaker 1: has it been more difficult over these last couple of
Speaker 1: years to communicate two students the wider community or of
Speaker 1: what those principles are and how you uphold them.
Speaker 2: Much more self conscious over the last few years in
Speaker 2: communicating those principles. I think when I took office, I
Speaker 2: mistakenly thought free speech was something you could take for granted,
Speaker 2: that everybody on a college campus believed in it, and
Speaker 2: that if I had to do anything to defend it,
Speaker 2: I would be defending it from threats from the outside.
Speaker 2: And there is some of that right right now. We
Speaker 2: are very concerned about threats from the outside. But one
Speaker 2: of the things we learned is free speech is a
Speaker 2: hard idea and we have to be explaining it to
Speaker 2: our own campus and making sure that people understand it.
Speaker 2: So I think right now, our campus community, partly because
Speaker 2: I am talking to the students about this every year
Speaker 2: and we are discussing it on the campus, is well
Speaker 2: aware of the free speech principles that we apply at Princeton.
Speaker 2: Whether they agree or disagree with those principles. You asked
Speaker 2: in your question whether there's universal understanding, there is not.
Speaker 2: There's free speech, like other concepts, is contested. It's contested
Speaker 2: in our society, it's contested in the world, and people
Speaker 2: have different views about it. And just as people should
Speaker 2: disagree about other things on a college campus, it's okay
Speaker 2: if they disagree about what free speech means and what
Speaker 2: it entails, but we have to be clear about On
Speaker 2: the one hand, you can disagree about this, but here
Speaker 2: are the principles that we will apply as a university.
Speaker 1: A recent challenge, perhaps the biggest recent challenge, has been
Speaker 1: on this issue of anti semitism on college campuses, and
Speaker 1: there has been a push to I was asking about
Speaker 1: a universal definition earlier. Come up with a universal definition
Speaker 1: for antisemitism that would be adopted. Is that something that
Speaker 1: is in place here that you consider putting in place here?
Speaker 2: Well, so let me start by saying that I have
Speaker 2: been dismayed at the rise of anti semitism in the world.
Speaker 2: Anti Semitism is clearly a problem in our country and
Speaker 2: on campuses, and while rare, we've seen manifestations of it
Speaker 2: on our own campus. And we have to stand steadfastly
Speaker 2: against antisemitism and other forms of hate. But we do
Speaker 2: that at Prince and through anti discrimination principles that are
Speaker 2: broad and that do not incorporate specific definitions of particular
Speaker 2: kinds of discrimination. So we expect that people will not
Speaker 2: be discriminated against on the basis of their religion, or
Speaker 2: their nationality, or their ethnicity. And we put that in
Speaker 2: very broad terms, and we don't define it specifically for
Speaker 2: anti semitism, or for anti black racism, or for other
Speaker 2: kinds of discrimination. And we think, just as is the
Speaker 2: case with many American anti discrimination laws, that having those
Speaker 2: broad definitions is a better and more effective way of
Speaker 2: stopping the problem.
Speaker 1: We're kind of talking about this from a kind of
Speaker 1: top down way, but I'm curious sort of how you
Speaker 1: establish this and enforce it in a classroom. So for
Speaker 1: a student who goes into class and says something that
Speaker 1: might be construed as controversial or out of mode with
Speaker 1: what most people in the class I'm think, how do
Speaker 1: you make sure that he or she feels comfortable doing
Speaker 1: that and won't face any kind of retaliation retribution from
Speaker 1: TA or a professor's result of doing that.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's a really important question. And when we
Speaker 2: start talking about what's going on in the classroom, just
Speaker 2: to draw an important distinction here, we're talking about academic
Speaker 2: freedom as it applies to faculty members and to students,
Speaker 2: rather than about free speech per se. Free speech applies
Speaker 2: if you're in a park or out in a square
Speaker 2: on the campus, the campus quadrangle, and it gives you
Speaker 2: these really broad rights to say things that may be
Speaker 2: offensive or as I indicated earlier, as any when you're
Speaker 2: in a classroom, we're part of we're engaged there in
Speaker 2: a truth seeking endeavor where we have a different set
Speaker 2: of rules requiring that people be respectful to one another
Speaker 2: and that they also have the freedom and this is
Speaker 2: part of academic freedom, just as as part of free
Speaker 2: speech to raise controversial opinions and to be able to
Speaker 2: do so without retaliation. So we have that spelled out
Speaker 2: in our rules and procedures of the faculty, not just
Speaker 2: that you won't be retaled against. But they specifically say,
Speaker 2: for example, that even the professor's viewpoint is open to
Speaker 2: challenge in the classroom. They say that professors must treat
Speaker 2: students with respect as well as the other way around.
Speaker 2: And we expect students to treat one another with respect
Speaker 2: because that's in the rules and procedures of the faculty.
Speaker 2: If there are departures from that, students where others can
Speaker 2: make complaints about how it is that a faculty member
Speaker 2: is behaving.
Speaker 1: I want to stick with academic freedom. And I've heard
Speaker 1: you speak out efforts by powerful actors in government and
Speaker 1: outside it who are trying to control the research that
Speaker 1: scholars do in the classes they teach. How difficult is
Speaker 1: it to keep a firewall up, keep insulation surrounding this campus,
Speaker 1: to keep those powerful actors, as you put it, out
Speaker 1: of the classrooms, out of the campus itself.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a It requires a very firm
Speaker 2: commitment to principle and a willingness to do hard things.
Speaker 2: University presidents and leaders have to understand that the commitment
Speaker 2: to allow academics, including our faculty, and including our students,
Speaker 2: to pursue the truth as best they see it is
Speaker 2: fundamental to what our universities do. We have to be
Speaker 2: willing to stand up for that. In principle, we have
Speaker 2: to be willing to speak up, and we have to
Speaker 2: be willing to say no to funding if it's going
Speaker 2: to constrain our ability to pursue the truth.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we discussed the developments at Columbia University, the
Speaker 1: cancelation of four hundred million dollars in grants and contracts
Speaker 1: there and Columbia's subsequent agreement to make changes to a
Speaker 1: raft of university policies, and I get President Ice Grouper's
Speaker 1: thoughts on the future of academic research. The federal government
Speaker 1: has taken some dramatic action against universities in the last
Speaker 1: several weeks. It's reviewing around nine billion dollars in federal
Speaker 1: contracts and grants awarded to Harvard University, part of a
Speaker 1: crackdown on what it says is a tolerance of anti
Speaker 1: semitism on college campuses. It froze four hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: in grants and contracts to Columbia University over the way
Speaker 1: it's handled anti semitism on campus. Columbia responded by announcing
Speaker 1: changes to university policy on a range of issues, from
Speaker 1: how it handles protests to the way it defines anti semitism.
Speaker 1: Princeton is also in the government sites. Christopher Iiscruber told
Speaker 1: me government agencies have frozen several dozen research grants.
Speaker 2: We had noticed actually yesterday of the suspension of some
Speaker 2: funds and are still seeking a clarification of exactly why
Speaker 2: these funds were suspended. So there's no respect in which
Speaker 2: we're immune from this. As from our standpoint, this compact
Speaker 2: is important to us, and I think it's important for
Speaker 2: universities to send shoulder to shoulder as we go forward.
Speaker 1: How worrisome is that to you you watch that happen
Speaker 1: in institutions around the country.
Speaker 2: It's deeply worrisome. It's deeply worrisome because, as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: this pact between the government and research universities, which goes
Speaker 2: back to shortly after World War Two, has been fundamental
Speaker 2: to the excellence of American research universities, and it has
Speaker 2: contributed tremendously to the prosperity, health and security of our country.
Speaker 2: And that pact has depended on the idea that the
Speaker 2: American government will come to universities and ask them to
Speaker 2: do research that is in the interests of the American people,
Speaker 2: and universities have done that spectacularly, making both the country
Speaker 2: and the universities stronger. Throughout that time, the American government
Speaker 2: has respected this principle of academic freedom. That means that
Speaker 2: when that research has undertaken, universities and their faculties can
Speaker 2: pursue the truth as they see it. What we're seeing
Speaker 2: now is the use of research and funding and the
Speaker 2: leverage that it gives the government over universities as a
Speaker 2: lever to try to change what it is they teach,
Speaker 2: and that threatens to disrupt the quality of our universities
Speaker 2: and the principles that are fundamental to them.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the agreement that Columbia came to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there are two separate questions here. One question
Speaker 2: is is it a good idea to take particular departments
Speaker 2: at a particular university and subject them to greater scrutiny
Speaker 2: and supervision from the central administration. That's a perfectly valid
Speaker 2: question to ask, and universities, as they pursue excellence, pursue
Speaker 2: the truth, and seek to ensure quality, will sometimes make
Speaker 2: a judgment that a particular department needs additional support or
Speaker 2: supervision in some way. That's a legitimate thing for them
Speaker 2: to do. And I don't have a view about whether
Speaker 2: or not Columbia as a university should be making that
Speaker 2: judgment about a set of departments there. I'm not in
Speaker 2: a position to assess those issues. But a second question
Speaker 2: is should the government come in and, without running through
Speaker 2: any of the processes that provide due process protections to
Speaker 2: a university, take funding that's given to the university for
Speaker 2: one subject, say medical science, and threaten to withdraw in
Speaker 2: order to force Columbia to do what the government thinks
Speaker 2: it should do with regard to one of its departments.
Speaker 2: That is, it seems to me what's happened that Columbia,
Speaker 2: and that is an intrusion on academic freedom that ought
Speaker 2: to concern every American because what's happening then is the
Speaker 2: government is withdrawing research funding again without the due process
Speaker 2: that accompanies any sort of investigation, and using it to
Speaker 2: try to force a university to move a department in
Speaker 2: a direction that the government thinks is desirable. And when
Speaker 2: you ask why is it that's such a huge proportion
Speaker 2: of Nobel Prizes get awarded to Americans. Why is it
Speaker 2: that the best scientists and engineers from all over the
Speaker 2: world want to come to the United States. It's because
Speaker 2: of this extraordinary partnership we've had here where the government
Speaker 2: says we're going to do research through these universities, We're
Speaker 2: going to fund that, and we're going to enable these
Speaker 2: universities to become the best in the world and produces
Speaker 2: these extraordinary innovations on behalf of the American people. Universities
Speaker 2: do a broader range of research than that, And then
Speaker 2: there's research that's done at universities that are funded from
Speaker 2: other sources, including, for example, endowments or tuition payments that
Speaker 2: enable universities to contribute to our understanding of great literature,
Speaker 2: for example, or American history.
Speaker 1: Given that history and the breadth that you describe, would
Speaker 1: it be impossible for the private sector to do the
Speaker 1: kind of research that's done at American colleges and universities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no way the private sector could substitute for
Speaker 2: what American research universities are doing now, both on their
Speaker 2: own and in partnership with the government. And I suspect
Speaker 2: if you ask the private sect, our tech companies or
Speaker 2: our pharma companies they would agree with that, And the
Speaker 2: reason is because we do the kind of long term
Speaker 2: research that doesn't have the payoff that's going to matter,
Speaker 2: the predictable, immediate term or medium term payoff that is
Speaker 2: going to matter to our corporations. Because what we've realized
Speaker 2: as Americans for a long period of time is that
Speaker 2: if you ask deep and profound questions about science, they
Speaker 2: will eventually pay off with innovations way down the road.
Speaker 2: They're going to make a difference to our country and
Speaker 2: our world. But you can't put all of that in
Speaker 2: a corporation where the board the leadership are beholden to
Speaker 2: shareholders who want to see a return on a faster
Speaker 2: timeline than from a nineteen eighty two paper to the
Speaker 2: twenty twenties. Right, that kind of unpredictability and that kind
Speaker 2: of path require this partnership, and it is what is
Speaker 2: unique about the American innovation ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So you have the federal government freeze and funding at
Speaker 1: PEN we've learned that the government is looking at funding
Speaker 1: to Harvard to the tune of eight or nine billion dollars.
Speaker 1: These seem like huge numbers. How do you deal with
Speaker 1: that level of uncertainties? You're putting together the budget and
Speaker 1: thinking about what research can be conducted at a school
Speaker 1: like Princeton. If there's the possibility that a seemingly mercurial
Speaker 1: government could say we want to pause this, we want
Speaker 1: to freeze this, we want to look at this, and
Speaker 1: it's going to effectively stop that funding for research.
Speaker 2: Well, that kind of interruption, right what you described as
Speaker 2: the mercurial character of that kind of intervention, will, if
Speaker 2: it persists, undermine the partnership that has been so critical
Speaker 2: to America's success. So one thing is how do I
Speaker 2: deal with that as a university president. That's a challenge,
Speaker 2: and you can deal with it through some short term
Speaker 2: chop but over time, the American government needs to recommit
Speaker 2: to that partnership and to sustain its commitment if we're
Speaker 2: going to succeed. But think about some of the young
Speaker 2: people who are making decisions. Think about a young woman
Speaker 2: who is thinking about doing an mdphd and is graduating
Speaker 2: from college right now. Question is is she going to
Speaker 2: bet ten years of her life on the idea that
Speaker 2: there's going to be research funding when she comes out
Speaker 2: of that so she can make the discoveries that are
Speaker 2: going to cure cancer or help us address Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker 2: That committing ten years is a tough proposition, even with
Speaker 2: a stable funding arrangement in place. Some of the people
Speaker 2: are going to make the decision they're going to do
Speaker 2: something else. Or think about an assistant professor who has
Speaker 2: to prove their worth in a tenure process and depends
Speaker 2: on grants to be able to do that, or a
Speaker 2: graduate student who's coming out and says, do I take
Speaker 2: a high salary in a private company or do I
Speaker 2: commit myself to this research that's going to make a
Speaker 2: difference decades down the road and prove to be the
Speaker 2: fundamental source of innovation. We're going to squander that talent
Speaker 2: pipeline if we have this kind of erratic intervention coming up.
Speaker 1: Christopher Eiscreup talks about his options as he deals with
Speaker 1: the government determined to make fundamental changes to the American
Speaker 1: university system. That includes how he might negotiate with the
Speaker 1: government and deploy his university's own considerable resources. Universities are
Speaker 1: under attack, but they're not exactly a soft target. Many,
Speaker 1: particularly the Ivy League, have considerable resources. Harvard's endowment is
Speaker 1: more than fifty billion, dollars in size, and Princeton has
Speaker 1: more than thirty three billion dollars under management, but universities
Speaker 1: are loathed to plunder these nest eggs. I ask Christopher
Speaker 1: Einsgruber what universities can do to get that frozen government
Speaker 1: funding unfrozen to get back to business as usual.
Speaker 2: I think the following things are clear. Right, we have
Speaker 2: to comply with the law. If there's an allegation that
Speaker 2: there's some kind of unlawful behavior, we have to change that.
Speaker 2: We have to stand steadfast against anti Semitism and all
Speaker 2: other forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the
Speaker 2: government to address those if that's their concern. But we
Speaker 2: will also continue vigorously to defend academic freedom, and we
Speaker 2: will insist on the due process rights of the of
Speaker 2: the university. So I think the range of options that
Speaker 2: a university or anybody else has under those circumstances are,
Speaker 2: first of all, to litigate if there are concerns, to
Speaker 2: address legitimate concerns where they exist, and to continue to
Speaker 2: work with the government to address and and move forward
Speaker 2: on what I think are shared goals. And there should
Speaker 2: be shared goals here of of making sure that the
Speaker 2: univer that the United States continues to be the world
Speaker 2: leader in research and innovation, making sure that we address
Speaker 2: all forms of hate or discrimination on our campus, and
Speaker 2: making sure that we conduct research lawful. So those conversations
Speaker 2: I think we can have. You know, there are other
Speaker 2: people who urge, well, are are there ways that you
Speaker 2: can accommodate the government in some way or bend to
Speaker 2: the government's policy preferences in order to restore funding. I
Speaker 2: think that's the wrong way, at least for an academic
Speaker 2: institution to be thinking about what its responsibilities are. We
Speaker 2: need to be true to our mission, and we need
Speaker 2: to be true to our values, and I think that's
Speaker 2: a way of being true to the broader American mission.
Speaker 1: So, worst case this funding goes away, are there places
Speaker 1: that you can turn to replace it? Is that from
Speaker 1: the private sector, is it from alumni? Is it from
Speaker 1: the endowment? I know you've said in the past, think
Speaker 1: of it as an annuity, don't think of it as
Speaker 1: a saving's account. You're not comfortable saying this is something
Speaker 1: from which you could draw an exceptional amount of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, David, thank you for making the point that when
Speaker 2: we talk about the endowment in particular, it functions like
Speaker 2: an annuity because we spend from it already at five
Speaker 2: percent a year to defray the cost of research, make
Speaker 2: it more affordable to the government for us to be
Speaker 2: able to do research here and also to make our
Speaker 2: education affordable to our students. But look, if government funding
Speaker 2: were to go down, right, we and others would look
Speaker 2: for other sources that we could use to support the
Speaker 2: funding to the research that has to take place on
Speaker 2: our campuses. We would look for things that we could
Speaker 2: stop doing. They would be real cost to that. Because
Speaker 2: I'm proud of what we're doing on the campus. We
Speaker 2: would try to raise other funds. We would look at
Speaker 2: ways to potentially reallocate endowment funding, which would involve very
Speaker 2: difficult choices. But at the end of the day, what
Speaker 2: would happen here and elsewhere is that less research would
Speaker 2: get done, and that would be a bad thing, I
Speaker 2: think for America because we would no longer have the
Speaker 2: kinds of innovation or the same degree of innovation and
Speaker 2: leadership that we have had to date.
Speaker 1: So with regard to the endowment, it could be used
Speaker 1: for a rainy day, but the forecast isn't calling for one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that? Well?
Speaker 2: The the endowment people. So now I do have to
Speaker 2: say some things about annuities and savings accounts. People sometimes
Speaker 2: think about the endowment as something that gets used on
Speaker 2: a rainy day, like a savings account that you keep
Speaker 2: off to the side. We spend more than five percent
Speaker 2: per year of the annownment and have to be able
Speaker 2: to do that in perpetuity, or we're not able to
Speaker 2: answer the able to offer the financial aid that we
Speaker 2: do to our students, or pay all of our faculty
Speaker 2: across all of our disciplines, or support the research that
Speaker 2: we do beyond what comes from federal funding. So if
Speaker 2: you're making a choice you can use the annownment. You
Speaker 2: can start to say, well, look we've got pressures on
Speaker 2: it here, and we have to use it differently than
Speaker 2: we were using it before. I was the chief budgetary
Speaker 2: officer for the university during the global financial crisis, and
Speaker 2: under those circumstances we had to pull in our wings.
Speaker 2: We had to cut positions to take financial aid up,
Speaker 2: but we froze are hiring. We weren't able to do
Speaker 2: some things in terms of building new facilities that would
Speaker 2: allow us to seize new research opportunities during that period.
Speaker 2: But we made tough choices about what we were going
Speaker 2: to do, and you can make those choices going forward.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, what those choices will
Speaker 2: mean is there are certain research projects that would have
Speaker 2: been undertaken that won't be undertaken because you've had to
Speaker 2: reallocate what the endowment does away from one project to another.
Speaker 1: Something that has been so central to the knowledge economy
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about has been students who have
Speaker 1: been born and lived in other countries who've come here
Speaker 1: to Princeton other universities to study and do research work.
Speaker 1: Are you worried that, given what we've seen in recent weeks,
Speaker 1: it'll be a less full pipeline of students doing that.
Speaker 2: I'm neabbly worried about that this university, and virtually every
Speaker 2: America university, depends on talent from around the world in
Speaker 2: order to reach its excellence. I mentioned earlier in our
Speaker 2: discussion the circumstances during World War Two that allowed the
Speaker 2: United States to seize this competitive advantage, and that had
Speaker 2: a lot to do with emigrants coming to our country
Speaker 2: from Europe. Princeton University had a kind of a new
Speaker 2: birth during that period because of all the extraordinary mathematicians
Speaker 2: and physicists who escaped the Nazi regime and came to
Speaker 2: the United States because of the freedom it offered, the
Speaker 2: freedom to pursue their research and the freedom to live
Speaker 2: according to the dectates of their faith and without discrimination.
Speaker 2: And this country and our universities have been a magnet
Speaker 2: to people from around the world throughout our history, I
Speaker 2: would say, in ways that have benefited the country tremendously. Now,
Speaker 2: with this combination of attacks on universities and some of
Speaker 2: what we are seeing around immigration and the treatment of
Speaker 2: Green card holders and visa holders, I think people will
Speaker 2: ask a second time about whether or not they want
Speaker 2: to come to the United States. If that happens, it
Speaker 2: will undermine our ability to attract talent, and it will
Speaker 2: make us weaker as a country.
Speaker 1: I'd like to devetail this with what we've been talking
Speaker 1: about with regard to academic freedom and free speech. So
Speaker 1: there's this video that was shot in Somerville, Massachusetts of
Speaker 1: a tought University doctoral student. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: seen it, but she's walking around and six masked law
Speaker 1: enforcem missiles come and apprehend her take her away. What
Speaker 1: do you say to a student here who sees that video,
Speaker 1: has heard what you've had to say about the climate
Speaker 1: of free speech on a college canvas, and sees in
Speaker 1: real terms there the effect that that could have today,
Speaker 1: That that's a young woman who was here in the
Speaker 1: United States studying, yes, participating in student life by making
Speaker 1: her opinions known in the student newspaper, and now finds
Speaker 1: herself in an extremely precarious position and threatened with being
Speaker 1: kicked out of this country.
Speaker 2: Yes, so I've had these questions from students, and it's difficult,
Speaker 2: and I think when I talk to them, I have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that difficulty. So part of what I say
Speaker 2: to them is, look, it's really important that they be
Speaker 2: able to speak up and participate on campus. And my
Speaker 2: own view as an American and as a constitutional lawyer
Speaker 2: is that it's really important for us as a country
Speaker 2: to continue to protect the free speech rights of non
Speaker 2: citizens as well as citizens. It has been one of
Speaker 2: our great strength as a country. And I also tell
Speaker 2: them that we Princeton will do what we can do
Speaker 2: within the law in order to support students. But I
Speaker 2: have to tell them because I have to be honest
Speaker 2: with them at the same time that the legal protections
Speaker 2: that exist for non citizens are not the same as
Speaker 2: they are for citizens. So I think students have to
Speaker 2: make a judgment about how and when that they speak up.
Speaker 2: There are going to be some circumstances in some ways
Speaker 2: of speaking that are safer and others. I think classrooms,
Speaker 2: for example, remain very safe environments for students to speak up,
Speaker 2: and the kind of conventions of civil discourse and engagement
Speaker 2: help to provide protection for students. But I have to
Speaker 2: be clear with the students, and David, I have to
Speaker 2: be clear with you, right, these are real risks that
Speaker 2: interfere with the kind of engagement that we should want
Speaker 2: from students who are in our country, and with the
Speaker 2: kind of discourse that has to go on on campuses.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you've brought us here because I'd love for
Speaker 1: you to put this moment in a broader historical context.
Speaker 1: There have been moments in the past where free speech
Speaker 1: on college campuses has been tested, where there have been
Speaker 1: protests where we've seen the government take an aggressive tack
Speaker 1: against against that. Does this feel like an outlier moment?
Speaker 1: Does it feel like there are historical analogs that you
Speaker 1: can look to. How do you see this moment in
Speaker 1: the broad sweep of American history.
Speaker 2: I think it's both true that what we are seeing
Speaker 2: right now is a kind of manager festation of trends
Speaker 2: that are always present in the United States, but also
Speaker 2: a rather acute moment and a deeply worrisome one. So
Speaker 2: if I may, I would take this back to Tokeville,
Speaker 2: the great sociologist who came to the United States in
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century and wrote this tremendously perceptive book that
Speaker 2: tells you lots of extraordinary things about Americans. I was
Speaker 2: getting ready for a speech a couple of months ago
Speaker 2: and pulled my Toauville off my shelf because I was
Speaker 2: hoping for a quote from him about Americans and the
Speaker 2: scientific enterprise here. And I didn't find what I was expecting.
Speaker 2: I had forgotten my Tokeville, as it turned out, because
Speaker 2: what he said was the Americans are never going to
Speaker 2: be good at abstract science, and they're never going to
Speaker 2: have a great literature because they're too concerned with the
Speaker 2: pragmatic and the pressures of the moment. And I realized, Wow,
Speaker 2: for all the things that Tokeville got right, one thing
Speaker 2: that he got wrong was he did not visualize the
Speaker 2: American universities that we have today. He didn't visualize what
Speaker 2: happens here at Princeton. He didn't visualize the Iowa Writers'
Speaker 2: Workshop that happens at the University of Iowa, or the
Speaker 2: Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara. That wasn't on his radar screen. But I
Speaker 2: think what he got right was these institutions exist, as
Speaker 2: I don't know, things that Americans regard simultaneously with pride
Speaker 2: and at the same time suspicion. Throughout their history. They
Speaker 2: take great pride in the excellence that gets manifested at universities,
Speaker 2: and they can be somewhat suspicious of the extraordinary freedom
Speaker 2: of thought and academic freedom that exists here and the
Speaker 2: ideas that emerge out of universities. So we have seen
Speaker 2: throughout our history times when there are intrusions on free
Speaker 2: speech and efforts to kind of rein in or control
Speaker 2: the extraordinary freedom that our country has allowed these universities
Speaker 2: in ways that have made them great. But I think
Speaker 2: this particular period is unusually severe. We've never seen the
Speaker 2: use of federal funding in the way that it is
Speaker 2: being used now to try to control universities, and if
Speaker 2: we really go down that road, that is a very
Speaker 2: dangerous road to go down. We've seen various kinds of
Speaker 2: anti immigrant moments in the past, but the efforts right
Speaker 2: now to seize on the vulnerability of immigrants in order
Speaker 2: to control or punish political speech that they're engaged in
Speaker 2: are unusual by comparison to the sweep of American history.
Speaker 2: So we're in a moment right now where education has
Speaker 2: become politicized beyond the norm in America, and I think
Speaker 2: we need to return to our root principles as a
Speaker 2: country and reaffirm the importance of these institutions to what
Speaker 2: it is we do as a nation. Thank you very much,
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jesse. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
Speaker 1: This episode is produced by Alex Secura, who also mixed it.
Speaker 1: It was edited by Patty Hirsh, Sarah McGregor, and Janet Lauren.
Speaker 1: It was fact checked by Adriana Tapia. Our senior producer
Speaker 1: is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our
Speaker 1: deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Nicole beemster boor. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
Speaker 1: If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
Speaker 1: review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It
Speaker 1: helps people find the show. Thanks for listening, We'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow