There is an urgent, nagging and ever-louder question that is the backdrop to nearly every story in the news of our day.

How can free speech in America — the hallmark that has defined our national conversation from our start— survive in a time when division is so pervasive? Can we speak freely — and with differnent perspectives — and hold the experiment that is the American republic together?

Those questions linger now, weeks after the horrific killing of conservative influencer and advocate Charlie Kirk. The American discussion is still wrestling with his death and its complex aftermath, which saw attacks on the freedom of speech from all sides and stoked the urgency of the debate on free speech. The Jimmy Kimmel moment has come and gone, but is likely to remain an emblem for 2025, as the Trump administration flexes its muscles to influence the behaviors of a whole range of our national institutions, including the media, popular entertainment — and higher education.

How will free speech move forward? Where in the American landscape can we make room to tend and grow this essential freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment?

On our campuses, argues Christopher L. Eisgruber, president of Princeton University.

In an engaging conversation, I and USA TODAY Network colleagues who have spent years covering higher education, free speech and, more recently, unrest on university campuses listened and questioned as Eisgruber made his case — days after Kirk's death and hours before ABC........

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