Few sectors of American life are as toxic and dysfunctional as higher education, and yet sometimes delicious rectification happens, and it is a time to savor. American universities are starting to crack under pressure—from growing public skepticism about higher education, outside activism, and the Trump administration’s push to stamp out both anti-Semitism and unconstitutional “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs. In March, Princeton University was listed as one of 60 colleges and universities under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for anti-Semitism. This month, Princeton has faced a reckoning: reports of President Christopher Eisgruber’s supposed “meltdown” and the retirement of Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security professor with ties to the Iranian government. Taken together, it means that good things are happening in Princeton’s corner of the Ivy League.
The Trump administration’s squeeze on Princeton began this Spring, when the Federal government suspended $210 million in grant funding from NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy after allegations of anti-Semitism on campus. As part of academia’s vanguard of gilded resistance to Trump, Eisgruber stated that Princeton would “vigorously defend academic freedom.” Eisgruber went on to say that there were “rare” manifestations of anti-Semitism on campus and that the university had to “stand steadfastly against antisemitism and other forms of hate … that do not incorporate specific definitions of particular kinds of discrimination.” Eisgruber was apparently oblivious to Tehran’s own representative on the Princeton campus, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, and his ties to suspected terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Mousavian has long been a target of outside criticism at Princeton for his connections to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Before his welcome into American academia, Mousavian worked as Iran’s ambassador to Germany in the early 1990s, during which four Iranian dissidents were assassinated in Berlin. In all, 23 dissidents were killed in Europe during that time. In 1997, the German courts determined that Iran’s foreign ministry and the Iranian government were the “masterminds” behind the murders. From 2003 to 2005, Mousavian worked as a member of Iran’s negotiating team for Tehran’s nuclear program, as well as the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council under Mohammad Khatami. Why Princeton hired Mousavian in 2009 can only be guessed, though the Ivy League’s contempt for America’s geopolitical primacy and affinity for anything that undermines the West are decent explanations.
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For years, multiple watchdog groups, Republican officials like Ted Cruz, and the National Association of Scholars (NAS) have called for Mousavian’s firing. This past week, it finally happened. Mousavian wrote on Twitter that “After 15 years of service at Princeton University, I retired at my own request at the end of May 2025.” That’s all well and good; however, the deeper question remains as to why Princeton thought it wise to employ someone like Mousavian in the fields of Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy in the first place. Because of its Ivy League status, Princeton enjoys close proximity to the corridors of power in Washington. A college like this with any self-awareness should have thought twice about putting someone with Mousavian’s credentials in such a position. This is why Mousavian’s exit cannot be enough. Princeton needs more pressure. So far, it is getting it.
This month, it came out that Eisgruber confronted his fellow college presidents from elsewhere in the Ivy League over their cooperation with the Trump administration’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism. At a meeting in Washington, D.C., for the Association of American University Professors, for which Eisgruber sits as chair, the Princeton president dismissed notions about pervasive anti-Semitism on campus and that university presidents should hold a hard line on working with Trump-led reforms. Apparently, Eisgruber missed the Hezbollah flags that were flying on Princeton’s campus and the regular student mobs shouting for “Intifada.” This doesn’t even include Princeton’s assigning anti-Semitic books about “decolonization” in its classes, anti-Semitic writers being invited to campus, and the ongoing movement on campus to divest from Israeli companies and other companies that do business with Israel. Eisgruber similarly did nothing about Mousavian for years, and as it appears, Mousavian may have retired instead of being fired. If Eisgruber and New Jersey’s Ivy League school suddenly grew a conscience, it is a detail that is not well-publicized.
Mousavian may be out at Princeton, and he currently faces calls for deportation from the United States from multiple corners, including from the Alliance Against the Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists, who call for his deportation to Europe to face prosecution. However, Mousavian is not the problem, but an aggravated symptom of a problem deep within America’s universities. This deep problem includes anti-Semitism and its corollary of anti-Western bigotry that permeates higher education and is protected by presidents like Eisgruber.
Mousavian is gone, but Eisgruber should join him.
Image: “Seyed Hossein Mousavian” Ericblair87 on Wikipedia
““After 15 years of service at Princeton University, I retired at my own request at the end of May 2025.”
And announced it 2 1/2 months later.
Princeton is not a state university so it is not a state retirement system, but there is more here. Maybe it is English as a second language, but “retired at my own request” is not “I decided to retire.”