MFSA's Recommendations Report for MIT

For many months now, the MIT Free Speech Alliance has been working on a comprehensive set of recommendations to give MIT as it works to chart a productive path forward on free expression. With the appointment of the faculty-led Committee on Academic Freedom and Campus Expression (CAFCE), charged with institutionalizing the wisdom of MIT’s new Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom across the Institute, this project has only grown more timely.

MFSA is thus pleased to announce the release of our recommendations, which can be viewed in full on our website, and include five high-priority recommendations:

Protect the reputation of the Institute and the diversity of viewpoints by adopting an institutional neutrality policy such as the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report.
Develop an institution or body within MIT that is responsible for addressing concerns around free speech and for organizing the various activities necessary to foster a culture of free speech.
Include required instruction on free speech and expression and MIT’s free speech policies for MIT students at all levels.
Educate administrative staff on the importance of free expression and viewpoint diversity.
Reform the Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response office to ensure proper transparency as well as to limit its actions towards members of the MIT community which inhibit free expression.

Besides the top five priority recommendations with which this article begins, MFSA has compiled an additional set of recommendations under the categories of commitment to a culture of freedom of expression, fostering civil discourse, cultivating intellectual diversity, breaking down existing institutional barriers to freedom of expression, and leadership accountability. Some of these are cultural, some institutional; all are specific actions we present for consideration by the Institute.

Our recommendations also include an analysis of the report Ad Hoc Working Group on Free Expression, which delivered MIT’s Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom as part of a 55-page report that also contained ten specific recommendations for free speech at MIT. The first of these, the adoption of the Statement, was completed by the faculty in 2022, and further endorsed by President Sally Kornbluth shortly after taking office. MFSA endorses the ten recommendations and urges MIT to implement them all; our recommendations also include some suggestions for how they may be strengthened in their application.

Finally, for additional reference, we also link to the recommendations of other organizations such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and American Council of Trustees and Alumni, as well as the institute-specific recommendations of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, a fellow member of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. The complete MFSA Recommendations document can be downloaded as a PDF.

We are hopeful that our recommendations will find a receptive audience at MIT. In fact, the recent action by MIT President Sally Kornbluth to end the use of DEI statements in faculty hiring satisfied a longstanding MFSA policy goal, allowing for its removal from our final recommendations. Elsewhere, we note that Harvard University has made national headlines for committing to a general position of institutional neutrality on matters unrelated to its central academic mission – sending a loud and clear signal we hope other universities will follow.

While these recommendations represented the work of several members of the MFSA staff and Board, we also give special thanks to MFSA member Raymond Raad ‘04, who volunteered in recent months to help oversee the writing and editing of the final document. Ray’s editing, which he undertook on top of operating the business he founded, resulted in a much stronger, more cohesive report, one we are proud to present to the MIT leadership and community.