People around MIT occasionally refer to "the postering incident" that started just two months after President Sally Kornbluth took office. But it is seldom discussed in detail and it is not well-documented. Most MIT alumni are not even aware of this early challenge to President Kornbluth's policies. As a service to our members, the MIT Free Speech Alliance documents the incident here.
On February 28th, 2023, members of the MIT community woke up to offensive flyers and posters around the Institute’s campus, along with chalked messages at MIT's 77 Mass Ave entrance. Many of these posters and chalked messages contained “slurs directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.” The offensive posters were reported to MIT's infamous Bias Response Team (BRT), which promptly swung into action to investigate.
The initial results of that investigation were reported in a campus-wide email from Vice Chancellor and Dean for Student Life Suzy Nelson and Institute Community and Equity Officer John Dozier.
Nelson and Dozier wrote 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.”
Since the MIT campus is covered liberally with security cameras, particularly the 77 Mass Ave entrance, the MIT administration had identified the perpetrators early and had interviewed them to understand their motives.
It is noteworthy that these public attacks on the LGBTQ+ community came just two weeks after newly installed MIT President Sally Kornbluth issued a statement giving her support to the Statement on Free Expression and Academic Freedom. That Statement had been adopted by the MIT faculty barely two months earlier. The opponents of free expression and academic freedom at MIT had wasted no time in challenging the new commitment to those principles.
On March 5th, President Kornbluth addressed the MIT community in a video reinforcing MIT's commitment to its free speech principles but strongly encouraging the members of the community to be more mindful of what they should say to each other, as a counterpoint to what they are allowed to say.
Self-identified marginalized members of the MIT community reacted to the postering incident with outrage in a letter to The Tech. Declaring the posters to be "hate speech," the authors of the letter called on the MIT administration to make a more forceful and emphatic response. Throughout this period, however, the MIT administration acted with restraint, reinforcing MIT's embrace of the LGBTQ+ community and encouraging the entire MIT community to express mutual respect. The administration declined to identify the perpetrators but disclosed that they were being counseled.
The February 2023 postering was followed by a similar 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."
Later in April David Spicer, an LGBTQ undergraduate senior, wrote a letter to The Tech saying that he had participated in putting up the posters, and explaining why he did it. Spicer stated that 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. He thought that seeing someone take advantage of the freedom to speak out with flyers like that would, he thought, create enough outrage to lead the Administration to change its policy.
Spicer was also the serving 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.
The MIT Free Speech Alliance holds that protesting against the scope of the free speech protections offered by MIT’s 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 they do not 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 their expression would be unwarranted.
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. Even "hate speech" must be allowed to be expressed, whether it is fake or sincere. Free expression would be unsustainable if it were subjected to such pressures.