MIT’s President weighs in on the situation previously covered here in Corpus Juris Canonici for academic cancellations (MIT). A follower of the Climate Change Alarmism religion held a heretical belief that universities should not admit or hire people based on skin color. He was, appropriately in my view, shunned. (Why “appropriately”? If you’re going to run a religion, you should do it right!)
Apparently it is extremely rare for a group at MIT to develop something new and useful because the only subjects on which the president of MIT sends out emails are social justice-related (Donald Trump bad, low-skill immigrants good, our former best friend and major donor Jeffrey Epstein bad, coronapanic good, etc.). Continuing in that tradition, an email from yesterday….
To the members of the MIT community,
You may have heard about a situation centered on our Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) regarding an invited speaker, Professor Dorian Abbot.
In a recent letter to the faculty, Provost Marty Schmidt lays out the facts, some of which have not come through clearly in the media and on social media. I encourage you to read his letter. You will also find thorough coverage in The Tech.
The controversy around this situation has caused great distress for many members of our community, in many quarters. It has also uncovered significant differences within the Institute on several issues.
I would like to reflect on what happened and set us on a path forward. But let me address the human questions first.
To the members of the EAPS community: I am deeply disturbed that as a direct result of this situation, many of you – students, postdocs, faculty and young alumni – have suffered a tide of online targeting and hate mail from outside MIT. This conduct is reprehensible and utterly unacceptable. For members of the MIT community, where we value treating one another with decency and respect, this feels especially jarring.
I encourage anyone who is subjected to harassing or threatening behavior or language to reach out for support and guidance to the Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) office.
I also want to express my tremendous respect for Professor Rob van der Hilst, department head in EAPS, who faced a difficult situation. I know Rob as a person of the highest integrity and character. We are fortunate to have his leadership in EAPS. In this case, when Rob concluded, after consulting broadly, that EAPS could not host an effective public outreach event centered around Professor Abbot, he chose to extend instead an invitation for an on-campus lecture; Rob took this step deliberately to preserve the opportunity for free dialogue and open scientific exchange.
Professor Abbot is a distinguished scientist who remains welcome to speak on the MIT campus, and he has been working with EAPS to confirm the event details.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this matter has caused many people inside and outside our community to question the Institute’s commitment to free expression. Some report feeling that certain topics are now off limits at MIT. I have heard these concerns directly from faculty colleagues, alumni and others who care deeply about the Institute.
Let me say clearly what I have observed through more than 40 years at MIT:
Freedom of expression is a fundamental value of the Institute.
I believe that, as an institution of higher learning, we must ensure that different points of view – even views that some or all of us may reject – are allowed to be heard and debated at MIT. Open dialogue is how we make each other wiser and smarter.
This commitment to free expression can carry a human cost. The speech of those we strongly disagree with can anger us. It can disgust us. It can even make members of our own community feel unwelcome and illegitimate on our campus or in their field of study.
I am convinced that, as an institution, we must be prepared to endure such painful outcomes as the price of protecting free expression – the principle is that important.
I am equally certain, however, that when members of our community must bear the cost of other people’s free expression, they deserve our understanding and support. We need to ensure that they, too, have the opportunity to express their own views.
A path forward [emphasis in original]
The issues this situation has brought to the surface are complex. No unilateral declaration on behalf of MIT could either resolve them in the moment or prevent future controversies. So I believe it is vital now that we engage in serious, open discussion together.
As the provost’s letter described, we will begin with a faculty forum, being planned for the last week of October. Discussion in this working session might address questions like these: Given our shared commitment to open inquiry and free expression, are there further steps we should take to practice it consistently? Should we develop guidelines to help groups in their own decision making? Does the concept need more prominence in our curriculum? How should we respond when members of our community bear the disproportionate cost of other people’s speech?
It will be essential in this overall process to include the perspective and experience of graduate and undergraduate students; I have asked Chancellor Melissa Nobles to work with student leaders to decide the best way to do so.
I have also asked Provost Marty Schmidt, Chancellor Nobles and Chair of the Faculty Lily Tsai to begin immediately assembling a special ad hoc working group to consider the insights and lessons we should take away from this situation. I believe this extremely important topic deserves and will benefit from this kind of thoughtful, deliberative, nuanced approach, perhaps including experts from outside MIT. The themes that emerge from the initial faculty forum will help inform the working group’s charge.
From the comments that have come to me directly, I can attest that our community encompasses a wide spectrum of very strong views about what has transpired in these last weeks.
As we cope with the aftermath of this public controversy here at home, let us hold ourselves to the same standards in our interactions with each other as in our intellectual work: To learn more, assume less and ask more – and listen as closely as we can to each other’s ideas, perspectives and experiences.
I hope that, in this moment and always, we will all continue to value and respect each other as fellow members of one community, united in a single great mission.
Sincerely,
L. Rafael Reif
Speech generates an externality (“cost” repeatedly mentioned above). Thus, the sensible way to deal with it, according to Econ 101, is to charge people every time that they speak and distribute the funds received (minus an administration fee) to the BIPOC and 2SLGBTQQIA+ members of the community who currently “bear the cost” of this externality. There is already a “Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) office,” according to the above. This office could be tasked with running the tax-and-spend system.
(Note that the above email is self-contradicctory. President Reif says that expression is costing for those who hear it. Yet he says “I believe it is vital now that we engage in serious, open discussion together.” If “open” means that people are going to say things along the lines of what the heretic Dorian Abbot said in Newsweek, i.e., that universities shouldn’t consider skin color in admissions and hiring, won’t that generate a huge cost to be borne by “members of our community”? Wouldn’t this actually be worse than the lecture Professor Abbot was going to give? (the canceled lecture was not on the subject of skin-color-based university policies))
Related:
- “Male Workers Allowed Into Baldwin, Unsettling Residents” (Oberlin Review): Baldwin Cottage is the home of the Women and Trans Collective. The College website describes the dorm as “a close-knit community that provides women and transgendered persons with a safe space for discussion, communal living, and personal development.” Cisgender men are not allowed to live on the second and third floors, and many residents choose not to invite cisgender men to that space. I was angry, scared, and confused. Why didn’t the College complete the installation over the summer, when the building was empty? Why couldn’t they tell us precisely when the workers would be there? Why were they only notifying us the day before the installation was due to begin?
Does he really believe this stuff and if so for how long has he believed it? All 40 years of his time at MIT? Did he think like this in 1981? And if so isn’t he guilty of the biggest sin for waiting so long to start fixing this dreadful problem? Forty years of the smartest people fixing free speech problems wasted.
To see how this ends have a look:
https://quillette.com/2021/10/13/the-implosion-of-bostons-pride-parade-is-a-sign-of-things-to-come/
RIP MIT
Real gibberish. Shameful that a probably educated person would write something this foolish — as if he is talking to (not very smart) children. One would hope that MIT alums withhold contributions and explain to these people why they are doing so. One strategy is to write the chair of the board of trustees and ask that your letter be circulated at the next board meeting. Dont give and explain why you are not giving. Alums who give money to these institutions are financing this sort of thing and are part of the problem. There are lots more deserving charities in the world than MIT.
I used to think MIT was full of smart people but they all seem like dumb dumbs to me.
Took me longer to change my perception of US academia, but I do consider being a famous U graduate a negative on a candidate’s resume these days. (And I am hiring for my newest startup – founding engineer positions, desired background in compilers, logical AI, programming languages, and I’ll take a demonstrated generalist. $10M series A, Austin TX)
His office hours are blocked out in 15-minute increments and if you want to schedule an appointment you have to use the form, including Kerberos. Has anyone from Roof and Tunnel successfully hacked the appointment system and managed to photograph a Jack Florey’s logo there as proof, or did that world end in 2006?
I am guessing that most other universities would handle this worse than MIT.
Strange logic: the bureaucrat who cancelled free speech has full support of MIT president but what the same bureaucrat did is declared unacceptable by MIT president. Doe MIT president consider himself unacceptable?
Non-linear logic. I am sure that another MIT genius Chomsky’s lemma was used in its constract.
Regarding the related Oberlin story, shouldn’t given modern gender fluid #science, zir consider that the repair-people might have identified as female while on-site conducting the repairs? Did she/they ask them their pronouns? If so, when? Upon arrival or departure? Seems bigoted to not ask twice given fluidity.
I think buying free speech is an excellent idea! Qatar could work on simplifying 2SLGBTQQIA+, China could tell boys to be more masculine (https://time.com/6096701/china-masculinity-gender/) or teach how to build hypersonic missiles.
Universities are large bureaucracies and function as such – the education and scientific advancement are almost incidental byproducts, so none of the above should surprise anyone (academic admin becomes part of HR, and decisions are made by HR on parameters that are independent of the parameters guiding scientific endeavors).
On the other hand, I would like to ask, how can some people both embrace the spiel of ‘safe spaces’, and the spiel of ‘growth happens outside your comfort zone’? the cognitive dissonance is unsurprising, yet staggering.
From the perspective of a higher administrator, Reif’s plan is a safe and sound way to deal with the problem: you convene a big faculty meeting, establish an ad-hoc working group, you ask lots of questions and formulate answers, all of which entails a long “cooling off” period and gives you space and time to maneuver. You assuage damaged egos and attempt to throw cool water on a hot problem. You may never answer the questions, and it’s not really important if you do. It’s not very shocking to me that after conducting a very successful $6.2 billion dollar capital campaign, Rafel Reif is looking keep the focus on that, and handle this problem in the standard way: circle up the wagons, just include all the wagons!
That’s what the school I used to work for would have done, basically. You don’t want this tried in the media! You don’t want to necessarily make enemies of the Twitter mobs and you certainly don’t want to further inflame the SJWs, who could start asking for things like more transparency regarding the donors to the recent capital campaign and begin a letter writing and online campaign to pressure those donors to take a side immediately and/or put a stop payment on their checks! That would be an unmitigated catastrophe!
So you get everyone on the record – inclusively of course, and you manage the problem. He sounds like a very competent manager who is getting some good advice.
And needless to say, you also have to watch your own back! You can’t afford to have a significant number of faculty members accuse you of handling this problem from the “top down” and imposing your will on them. Instant death! Just look at what happened to Larry Summers (and I’ll almost guarantee Reif and Summers have had a recent telephone conversation.)
So from that perspective it’s not at all surprising to me. This isn’t surprising – it’s how the machine works. I’m sure a great deal more interesting things have been said in Reif’s email account and in various candid telephone conversations he’s had recently. That’s always true, and I know that first hand.
Reif is very good technocratic administrator. The most important thing to do is: “Get this off the NEWS. NOW.”
By the way, the University I used to work for prided itself (and still does) on being an institution motivated by its concerns for Social Justice as a central pillar of its Mission. The Executive Vice President’s office was at one point taken over by a mob of students to barged in, took the place over and basically held it hostage until their demands were met. After that, they moved the offices to the upper floor of an administrative building and put electronic locks on the doors. They were not going to be besieged again, and I’ll guarantee that L. Rafael Reif does not want a big mob in his office. They’ll just show up on Twitter, now, though – where they will do even more damage.
This MIT meeting and committee proces is very well depicted in Ayn Rand’s novel Fontainhead. And by the way, wasn’t the novel’s hero Roark expelled from an engeneering school that looked suspiciously like MIT in the beginning of the story? Maybe MIT did not really change?
LSI: Please sit down for a few seconds if you’re not — because the truth is that I have never read The Fountainhead ( https://archive.org/stream/TheFountainhead/The-Fountainhead_djvu.txt ) – at least not as it should be read, from end to end.
I’ve read quotes from it, of course, and if I’m mistaken there is a dusty old copy of it sitting in box somewhere in a storage area. I’ve read various critiques of it from different viewpoints – but I’ve never read the book in its entirety – which is really an inexcusable lapse on my part, and I am genuinely embarrassed.
At the time I would have read it, I was more immersed in Chomsky and it was easier to just to read what other contributors to Z Magazine, et. al., had to say about it. It was never an assigned reading, and now you are going to make me read it! Lol.
However: it would not surprise me one iota if what you are saying is accurate, or at least instructive.
@LSI: “…if I’m not mistaken…”
You know what I mean.
It’s funny though, because people have asked (or accused me) before: “You must be a big Ayn Rand reader.” And I tell them: “No, you’d be surprised, I actually haven’t read much she wrote.” They usually don’t know what to do with that, but it’s true. I have to admit I like Art Deco style and architecture, though.
Alex, nobody is perfect. You should read Ayn Rand works, at least for their caricature of contemporary to her politicians, political movements and other real characters.
Ayn Rand is an easy read and she makes some very good points.
LSI: I searched to see if Ayn Rand had ever visited Boston and found https://courses.aynrand.org/campus-courses/ayn-rand-at-the-ford-hall-forum/
So maybe she learned something about MIT bureaucrats back then!
I wrote a bit about Rand in https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2015/10/08/could-it-be-that-ayn-rand-was-right/ (“What I remember from wading through this sea of prose (about 15 years ago, to see what the fuss was about) was (a) an astutely observed description of the bureaucratic mind, and (b) the idea that the most productive American individuals flee the bureaucratic/socialist constraints to form their own society in the mountains of Colorado. My thoughts about the book at the time were that, like Karl Marx, Ayn Rand succeeded pretty well as a historian (describing the American fondness for bureaucracy and top-down government planning of the economy) but failed as a prophet.”)
Philip, thanks for the lectures link, I will watch them. But she sure knew about MIT before 1970th. Your post is mostly about Atlas Shrugged.
I found Fountainhead is much more interesting book. How do you call real-life prototype of New England engineering college that is called Stanton Institute of Technology and from which main character Howard Roark was expelled? Multiple choice for the answer is a) NYU b) Moscow State University c) I am with her d) MIT
Ayn Rand combined her knowledge of pre – and post – revolutionary Russia and her discovery of American parallels and create a very interesting story in Fountainhead. I think that everyone should read it for fun and info.
Her other books based on personal experience during and post Communist coup in Russia are even stronger if dark but they provide good emotional landscape of Russian and later Soviet regime and feeling that it could happen here given that back than, in 1920th, US left and “intellectuals” supported those in Communist Russia who under “intellectuals” pressure had to shift their earlier saner positions to left of Stalin and whose new radical economic plan Stalin appropriated after ridding himself of left opposition, to a high degree but still less radical economically and family-wise, of course adding torturous methods of enforcement. If you are interested in that period in America you can read about Russian emigre refugee from communism Vladimir Nabokov’s shunning in left American academic circles in 1920th and 30th, particularly in Ivy League, apparently communism used to perfectly mix with Jewish quota in Ivy League colleges back than.
As of Atlas Shrugged, it is an interesting read and good enough analysis but it is the least interesting book of her works for me. Ayn Rand idealized individuals, I do not although I too believe in creative spirit and individualism Even though the process that she noticed has been happening, for example loss of those who were willing to work for peanuts for big gov and their cronies in big business.
Of course she could not forecast outsourcing and H-1B visas. But to be a prophet like Moses or the later prophets much personal sacrifice and strict personal behavior is required of a prophet candidate. That was not Ayn Rand style for sure!
At least it is great that she did not become a dark prophet a-la Balaam from Chapter 22 of the Book of Numbers who fell on his back every time God spoke to him and who was not in control of his own mouth.
Pardon my typos if any