MIT Free Speech Alliance Statement Regarding Offensive Flyers and Messages on MIT Campus

March 1, 2023

The MIT Free Speech Alliance learned last Thursday, as did many in the MIT community, of the controversy regarding offensive flyers and chalked messages around the Institute’s campus, as reported in a campus-wide email from Vice Chancellor and Dean for Student Life Suzy Nelson and Institute Community and Equity Officer John Dozier. Absent a fuller accounting from the Institute, whose Bias Response Team received complaints regarding the messages, our knowledge of the matter is limited to what they have reported to the community, specifically noting messages containing “slurs directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.”

Nelson and Dozier write in part:

“Through its initial review, the BRT learned that the messages were put up by students choosing to use extreme speech to call attention to and protest what they see as the implications of the new Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom and aspects of the final report of the faculty Ad Hoc Working Group on Free Expression. The chalking and flyers that carried slurs were put up as part of a much larger set of flyers, expressing a wide range of views, many framed in provocative terms.”

It is important to note that protesting against the scope of the free speech protections offered by MIT's 2022 free expression statement is itself protected expression, and students are well within their rights to engage in such protest. Furthermore, the content of the messages, even though they may have been offensive to some in the MIT community, bears the strong presumption of being protected expression as well, provided that it didn’t fall into unprotected categories of expression such as incitement, targeted harassment, or true threats. Assuming the speech at issue is protected, disciplinary investigations or charges against students over the content of this expression are unwarranted.

Additionally, a core tenet of free expression is that speech doesn’t lose its protection simply because a large portion of its audience find its message upsetting or offensive. Free expression would be unsustainable if it were subjected to such pressures.

While MIT is free to use its own messaging to criticize or condemn speech that goes against its community values, it should not use this episode as a cause to waver in its commitment to protecting and promoting free expression. President Sally Kornbluth, in recently giving her support to the Statement on Free Expression and Academic Freedom, signaled a number of new efforts aimed at making free expression a core MIT value. For the long-term health of the institution, this work must continue uninterrupted.

MFSA will continue to monitor this matter, and may offer further comment as additional facts and context come to light.

Addendum, March 5, 2025:

The February 2023 postering was followed by another episode in April. The Administration responded with a second letter, acknowledging again that the posters were legitimate speech, and telling students, "If you object to a flyer on campus, respectfully contact those who posted it to let them know. This is why flyers must clearly include contact information," and "If you choose to counter-post your own flyer, please be sure to prominently sign your flyer, date it, and include contact information."

It became known that David Spicer, an LGBTQ undergraduate senior, was behind the posters. In April, Spicer himself came forward and wrote a letter to The Tech saying that he had participated in putting up the posters, and explaining why he did it. He posted them in order to create opposition to MIT's free speech policies, and to the free expression statement in particular. He wanted to make the point that the First Amendment, and MIT free speech policy, allowed the posters, which said such things as “God Hates Fags”, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”, and “Same-Sex Parents Doom Kids”. He himself would have preferred MIT to ban such statements and discipline students who put them on posters, and he thought that seeing someone take advantage of the freedom to speak out with flyers like that would, he thought, create enough offense to lead the Administration to change its policy.

Spicer was at the time President of the Undergraduate Association. Despite his genuine opposition to the views on his posters and his argument that the posters were useful for showing what MIT policy permitted, most students were critical of his provocative tactic. The Undergraduate Council censured him, suspended him from office, and announced a recall election. In the election, 36% of the undergraduate student body voted, and 93% voted to remove Spicer from office. It seems that the rhetorical technique of trying to cause offense to create backlash failed, and in the Gaza protests of the following year, it became clear that free expression is a value that can help all parts of the political spectrum.