Academia is like the media, in that most people know it is a bit biased, but they have no idea how twisted the world in which these people operate really is.
If they did, most college campuses would be converted into insane asylums and staffed with psychiatrists imported from abroad (since many of our own in the United States are educated by insane people), and our supply of antipsychotics would be strained by the new demand.
A Princeton freshman reports, “Wolf’s attitude was not the exception at orientation, but the rule, when it came to presenting the other side of the political divide.” https://t.co/DSnVr5ud4e
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 29, 2026
Princeton University is one of the most prestigious in the world, and it comes with a price tag to match. A freshman entering this year will be charged about $400,000 by the time they graduate, and many will leave with large student loan balances that will burden them for years, or even decades.
Yet the professoriate — including the most prestigious among them — is so twisted that at freshman orientation a neuroscientist (STEM, not Humanities), could not force herself to utter the word "trump," as in "trump card." And the university president watched her struggle approvingly.
“T-R-U-M-P.”
Neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf was answering a student’s question when she nearly used the word “trump” as a regular English verb, meaning “override” or “overcome” — but she couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence. She collapsed into her armchair, citing her inability to say “his name” out loud, and instead spelled it out, letter by letter. At the Princeton Pre-read assembly, in front of the entire Class of 2030. University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, sitting across from her, smiled and said nothing.
Mandatory first-year events like the pre-read assembly — of which there are many — could be an opportunity to demonstrate respectful bipartisan disagreement, an opportunity to show the incoming class how free expression can be passionate and productive. They are an opportunity squandered.
Wolf’s attitude was not the exception at orientation, but the rule, when it came to presenting the other side of the political divide. She refused engagement with the other side when she treated a Republican president like Voldemort. The University showed similar avoidance in mandatory orientation events.
The Princetonian covered the story from a decent angle — showing how politically unbalanced Princeton's official orientation is and how the institution normalizes disdain for conservatives and conservative ideas.
That's entirely true, and it's an important point to hammer home. If Princeton's official welcome communicates that being a Trump supporter, or even just being OK with the fact that he exists in the same world as us, isn't exactly an indication that the purpose of academic freedom — exploring all ideas and encouraging intellectual exploration — remains alive and well. And it certainly disproves the claim that diversity, openness, and creating a "safe space" for all people are priorities for Princeton.
The “Sustainability in Action” event, for example, included little about Princeton’s actual commitment to sustainability; instead, the intersectionality of racism and pollution was a primary topic, including a Kahoot quiz with a land acknowledgment. That perspective on environmentalism is irrelevant to everyday recycling, and it is also primarily a left-wing perspective. If Princeton wants to take on the task of educating about climate issues at large during orientation, they should present multiple sides to students: What about the ongoing global debates on clean energy, affordability, and the costs of reducing emissions?
But it also misses something important: prestigious institutions are run by genuinely crazy people, and crazy people shouldn't be entrusted to teach kids or promoted as the best, brightest, and models for the next generation.
Don't get me wrong. Professor Wolf has every right to hate Trump as much as she likes, and in a political discussion, I don't find it offensive at all that she would be free to express that at a university. In fact, I think it would be fine for her to (rationally) express her disgust for Trump as long as she could explain why, rationally and without recourse to "ickiness."
But when a neuroscientist cannot say the words "trump card" without spelling out T-R-U-M-P because, she admits, she cannot dirty her mouth with that syllable, that's insane. I guarantee you that she has uttered the word "Hitler" without spelling his name, and used it to describe President Trump.
In other words, Hitler is further inside the Overton Window than Donald Trump. That probably explains why Graham Platner was accepted within the Democrat fold while Susan Collins, whose Trump-adjacency extends to being in the same political party, is beyond the pale.
I think it's a mistake to look at academia's transformation over the past couple of decades and see it as becoming more liberal; academia has been liberal for nearly a century and has always had room for liberal ideas outside the mainstream.
This is fundamentally different. Academics, as a class, if not all individuals, are psychotic in an almost literal sense. Their connection to the world is so tenuous that some can't even utter homonyms of Trump's name because they are psychologically incapable, and the president of Princeton is just fine with that.
Before you think, "He's just extrapolating from one incident," know that I am not. Yes, this is an extreme example, but it is not sui generis. Universities now allow students to shut down events and applaud students who physically assault people with whom they disagree. Harvard gave a prestigious fellowship to a student who was charged with assaulting a student for being a Jew.
Harvard Law Review Awards $65k Fellowship to Student Charged in Assault of Israeli Classmate: Report https://t.co/fjOiR3wX3l
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 1, 2025
The psychosis is of the same type as we saw during Mao's Cultural Revolution, and it's no shock that one of the Left's most admired streamers is Hasan Piker, an admirer of Mao and an advocate for his tactics.
None of this is remotely within the range of "normal" behavior, and it shouldn't be defended as part of the Overton Window for academic freedom.
Holding extreme views is within the rights of academics, but promoting literal insanity is not. And you can see the practical results, as academic institutions become sites where actual violence is used to suppress ideas, and where the assassination of political opponents is routinely celebrated.
If we see this as merely a problem of these institutions lacking intellectual diversity, we are underplaying it by a wide margin. It goes much deeper than that. Taxpayers are subsidizing, and our culture is handing prestige to people who are acting as cult leaders, and dangerous ones at that. They aren't harmless Hare Krishnas spreading love on the streets.
They are creating hard-core jihadis for the cause. Or trying to, on our dime.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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