Princeton’s ‘Bias-Reporting’ System Is Stifling Campus

L ast month, a fierce controversy erupted at Stanford University over the school’s use of an anonymous reporting system to investigate allegations of bias, discrimination, and other behaviors that purportedly cause “harm.” Many faculty members and students are indignant over the reporting system, which they argue poses a clear and present danger to free speech and academic freedom on Stanford’s campus.

Similar systems are proliferating on campuses across the country. According to a 2022 Speech First report, more than 450 U.S. colleges and universities maintain bias-reporting systems — approximately double the number that existed five years ago. As at Stanford, many of these systems allow complainants to register their reports anonymously.

Amid growing concerns over the reach, effects, and implications of such systems nationwide, my university, Princeton, has thus far seen its own bias-reporting system slip by largely under the public radar. But Princeton maintains a highly sophisticated bias-reporting apparatus that incorporates many of the same elements that drew intense scrutiny to Stanford, from anonymous reporting to third-party hosting software.

Bias reporting at Princeton is overseen by the university’s DEI office, known as the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. The DEI office accepts two types of bias reports — those made in-person, by email, or through an online form by identified complainants; and those made anonymously. Both faculty members and students can be the subject of bias reports.

For anonymous reports, the DEI office utilizes a third-party platform known as EthicsPoint, which is a proprietary product of the software company Navex. Along with reports of fraud, theft, and sexual misconduct, members of the campus community can use EthicsPoint to submit anonymous reports alleging bias or discrimination.

Princeton previously used EthicsPoint to track student violations of stringent social-distancing rules imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Before returning to campus in January 2021, students were required to sign a “social contract” promising to report their “non-compliant” peers to university administrators, including through EthicsPoint if they wished to remain anonymous.

A Princeton website notes that its EthicsPoint interface is “hosted externally” on the product’s servers, and Navex’s data privacy webpage indicates that all U.S.-originating data the company collects is stored at a facility in Dallas, Texas.

Student data collected by Navex can be handed over to government authorities or private parties upon request. The company’s website acknowledges that “nearly all requests for data” are related to its AlertLine and EthicsPoint products.

Princeton also keeps its own documentation of bias reports. In an email, Princeton spokesman Michael Hotchkiss told me that the university’s DEI office retains all data collected from submitted reports in its permanent records in order to “identify” future “opportunities for training and community support.” In other words, Princeton files away all bias reports — including complaints sent in anonymously and those which are judged to be frivolous or baseless — in order to use their contents to justify further interventions into academic affairs and student life by DEI administrators.

Hotchkiss noted that, in the 2021–2022 academic year, a total of 96 reports of bias, discrimination, or harassment were filed. According to annual “bias reports” released by the university, in the 2020–2021 academic year, 104 reports were received. In the 2019–2020, academic year, the DEI office received 117 reports.

The consequences of bias reports at Princeton can range from minimal to severe. If Princeton determines that the acts of bias are sufficiently severe (amounting to prohibited discrimination or harassment), the accused can be subject to myriad penalties, including formal reprimands, periods of probation, suspension, and even expulsion from the university.

But even when Princeton determines that reported bias constituted protected speech, or did not occur at all, accused persons can still be subject to what are known as “No Communication” and “No Contact” orders. In cases of reported bias where a no-communication or no-contact order is issued, a student or faculty member found not guilty of discrimination or harassment would still be forbidden from all forms of contact with the accuser — including, in some instances, being forced to leave the room if their accuser enters and being barred from clubs, classes, buildings, and other shared campus spaces — on pain of disciplinary action.

No-communication and no-contact orders were originally intended to shield victims of sexual assault and harassment from their assailants. But Princeton has recently deployed them as weapons to silence student journalists and heterodox voices on campus. While such orders are overseen by a separate Princeton office, and Hotchkiss maintained that the DEI office “does not issue” them directly, the DEI office’s website directs students exposed to speech they “find offensive” to “take advantage” of campus resources including no-contact and no-communication orders — even when the speech at issue has been ruled protected by Princeton administrators.

All of this creates an atmosphere of mutual mistrust and repression. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit observed in a 2019 decision, university bias-response systems impose an “objective chill” on campus speech because they function “by way of implicit threat of punishment and intimidation to quell speech.” The Fifth Circuit concurred in a 2020 ruling, noting that a bias-response system “represents the clenched fist in the velvet glove of student speech regulation.” Princeton’s system is no different.

Indeed, Princeton’s labyrinthine bias-reporting apparatus — complete with third-party data collection, anonymous reporting, easily accessible campus restraining orders, and the bizarre and unnecessary practice of using unsubstantiated bias reports to justify stepped-up DEI trainings — poses dueling significant risks to free speech and student privacy. By encouraging students to tell on peers whose speech they find offensive and facilitating a campus culture of anonymous reporting, no-contact orders, and self-censorship, Princeton’s bias-reporting system utterly fails to uphold the university’s stated commitment to “protect and promote free expression.”

Princeton needs to immediately rein in its bias-reporting apparatus — both to facilitate a culture of free and open discourse on campus, and to ensure that student data collected from submitted bias reports is not accessible to administrators or third-party contractors. For Princeton to keep the system as it is would be nothing short of pure negligence and would reflect a willful disregard for the safety and privacy of its students.