Princeton professor Robert P. George said Monday he has resigned from the Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, marking the most high-profile exit to date from the conservative institution caught in a crisis over its handling of cancel culture versus antisemitic voices on the right.
Mr. George, director of the James Madison Program in Ideals and Institutions at Princeton, said he had reached an “impasse” with the foundation over Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ refusal to retract his Oct. 30 video defending Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with pro-Hitler podcaster Nick Fuentes.
“I have resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation,” Mr. George said in a statement posted on Facebook. “I could not remain without a full retraction of the video released by Kevin Roberts, speaking for and in the name of Heritage, on October 30th.”
Mr. George continued: “Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse.”
A Heritage spokesperson thanked the Princeton professor for his contributions, but also stood by Mr. Roberts.
“We are thankful for Professor George and his service to Heritage. He is not only a towering intellect and rare conservative in the Ivy League, he is a good man and we look forward to opportunities to work together in the future,” the spokesperson said. “Under the leadership of Dr. Roberts, Heritage remains resolute in building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. We are strong, growing, and more determined than ever to fight for our Republic.”
Heritage has seen more than a dozen departures from conservative scholars, advocates and pro-Israel organizations since the video’s release, but none more consequential than that of Mr. George, a board member since 2019 and leading legal authority on the U.S. Constitution, foreign policy and religious freedom.
Mr. George praised both Mr. Roberts and board chairman Barb Van-Andel Gaby in his resignation notice, and extended his best wishes to Heritage moving forward.
“At the same time, Kevin is a good man,” Mr. George said. “He made what he acknowledged was a serious mistake. Being human myself, I have plenty of experience in making mistakes. What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake.”
Mr. Roberts rejected calls to resign over the ensuing outcry, saying he wants to stay and clean up “the mess” he made.
He has also refused to condemn or “cancel” Mr. Carlson, referring to him as “my friend” in a Nov. 5 video.
“I’m sad to be leaving the Heritage board,” Mr. George said. “I have great affection and esteem for Barb Gaby, who chairs the board, and my other board colleagues. I wish them and the Heritage Foundation the very best.”
A devout Catholic, Mr. George previously chaired the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He has served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the President’s Council on Bioethics, and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology.
The rest of his resignation statement reads as follows:
“My hope for Heritage is that it will be unbending and unflinching in its fidelity to its founding vision, upholding the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the civic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I pray that Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ’created equal’ and ’endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.’
“The anchor for the Heritage Foundation, and for our Nation, and for every patriotic American is that creed. It must always be that creed. If we hold fast to it even when expediency counsels compromising it, we cannot go wrong. If we abandon it, we sign the death certificate of republican government and ordered liberty.”
Robby George was the head of the “Kevin Roberts showed terrible judgment and there need to be consequences” camp, which has apparently lost out to “everything is well, nothing to see here” camp. Heritage will now decline as an institution (or we will decline as a nation). Sad. https://t.co/DT8kqrLn6l
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) November 17, 2025
Other individuals who have disassociated from Heritage over Mr. Roberts’ ongoing support for Mr. Carlson include former Rep. Michele Bachmann, evangelical leader Laurie Cardoza-Moore, longtime Heritage fellow Chris DeMuth, economist Stephen Moore, and George Mason University law professor Adam Mossoff.
Organizations that have left Heritage’s antisemitism task force include the Coalition for Jewish Values, Israel Innovation Fund, National Jewish Advocacy Center, Israel Forever Foundation, Young Jewish Conservatives, and the Zionist Organization of America.
Some of the departures came even after the task force’s four co-chairs announced Nov. 6 that the panel would split off from Heritage “for a season,” and expand its mission to include fighting the “rising scourge” of antisemitism on the right.
The task force plans to co-host a conference entitled “Exposing & Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Right” on Tuesday in partnership with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel.
