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Author Talk: Christopher Eisgruber

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber discusses his book, "Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right," at this in-person and livestreamed event. Registration required.

President Eisgruber will be joined in conversation with Deborah Pearlstein, Director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor of Law and Public Affairs.

To attend in person, please register through this page. To attend virtually, visit the library's YouTube channel.

From the publisher:

Conversations about higher education teem with accusations that American colleges and universities are betraying free speech, indoctrinating students with left-wing dogma, and censoring civil discussions. But these complaints are badly misguided. 
  
In "Terms of Respect," constitutional scholar and Princeton University president Christopher L. Eisgruber argues that colleges and universities are largely getting free speech right. Today’s students engage in vigorous discussions on sensitive topics and embrace both the opportunity to learn and the right to protest. Like past generations, they value free speech, but, like all of us, they sometimes misunderstand what it requires. Ultimately, the polarization and turmoil visible on many campuses reflect an American civic crisis that affects universities along with the rest of society. But colleges, Eisgruber argues, can help to promote civil discussion in this raucous, angry world—and they can show us how to embrace free speech without sacrificing ideals of equality, diversity, and respect. 
  
Urgent and original, "Terms of Respect" is an ardent defense of our universities, and a hopeful vision for navigating the challenges that free speech provokes for us all. 

Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber has served as Princeton University’s 20th president since July 2013. He served previously as Princeton’s provost for nine years, beginning in 2004, after joining the Princeton faculty in 2001.

As president, Eisgruber has led efforts to increase the representation of low-income and first-generation students at Princeton and other colleges and universities. Princeton’s socioeconomic diversity initiatives have attracted national attention from the New York Times, the Washington Post, 60 Minutes and other news outlets. Eisgruber has also been a leading voice in Washington and elsewhere for the value of research and liberal arts education. He has also emphasized the importance of both free speech and inclusivity to Princeton’s mission and championed the University’s commitment to service.

President Eisgruber is a recipient of the United States Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.  He serves as board chair for the Association of American Universities, as co-chair of the American Talent Initiative steering committee, and was a member of the United States Navy’s Education for Seapower Advisory Board from 2023 to 2025.

Eisgruber received his A.B. in physics from Princeton in 1983, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He then earned an M.Litt in politics at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. cum laude at the University of Chicago Law School. After clerking for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, he taught at New York University’s School of Law for 11 years. 

Eisgruber’s books include Constitutional Self-Government (2001); Religious Freedom and the Constitution (with Lawrence Sager, 2007); The Next Justice: Repairing the Supreme Court Appointments Process (2007); and Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right, to be published by Basic Books in September 2025.

Deborah Pearlstein is the Director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor of Law and Public Affairs. Pearlstein Director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor of Law and Public Affairs.  Before joining Princeton, she was Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, and held visiting appointments at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Georgetown University Law Center. Her work on the U.S. Constitution, international law, democracy, and national security has been published in leading journals, including the law reviews of the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgetown, and Texas, as well as peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of American Constitutional History and Constitutional Commentary.  Her article, The Executive Branch Anticanon, was selected by the AALS National Security Law Section as the best paper of 2020.  Her first book, Losing the Law, is forthcoming with Princeton University Press in 2026.  Pearlstein’s work has also appeared frequently in popular venues such as The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and The New York Times, and she has repeatedly testified before Congress on topics from executive war powers to congressional oversight.  Professor Pearlstein has served as Chair of the AALS National Security Law Section, as a member of the ABA’s Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, and on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed Journal of National Security Law and Policy.  In 2021, she was appointed to a U.S. State Department Advisory Committee focused on helping to ensure the timely declassification and publication of government records surrounding major events in U.S. foreign policy.
Before embarking on a career in law, Pearlstein served in the White House from 1993 to 1995 as a Senior Editor and Speechwriter for President Clinton.

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