MIT Free Speech Debate: Closing the Gender Gap in Stem

May 1, 2025, Cambridge, MA. The MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA) and MIT's Open Discourse Society hosted an Oxford Union style debate on the proposition, “Resolved, We Must Close the Gender Gap in STEM,” in MIT's Wong Auditorium at 7 p.m. April 30. The event was also livestreamed and the video is posted at MFSA’s YouTube channel.

This is the fifth in MFSA’s ongoing debate series modeling what vigorous but civil debate on a contentious issues looks like. (MFSA's debates have collectively amassed nearly 60,000 views on YouTube, where they can all be viewed.) MFSA does not take an official position on any issue selected for debate. What we insist on is that controversial issues be openly and civilly discussed rather than having one side or the other be canceled or shouted down. As MFSA President Wayne Stargardt has previously said, "The MIT Free Speech Alliance is continuing to demonstrate to the MIT community, and to society at large, how to have a civil discussion about difficult and controversial subjects. These debates reflect MIT's traditional openness to a wide range of viewpoints, and their strong reception shows this spirit is still alive at our country's leading STEM university."

Moderating this spring's debate was Linda Rabieh, Senior Lecturer in the MIT Concourse learning community and a Co-Director of MIT's Civil Discourse Project. The affirmative team members were Jennifer Roecklein-Canfield, Professor and Chair of Chemistry and Physics at Simmons University, and Pamela R. McCauley, Dean of the School of Engineering at Widener University. The negative team members were Christina Hoff Sommers, Senior Fellow Emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute and author of, among other books, The War Against Boys (2001), and Cory Clark, Behavioral Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and Executive Director of the Adversarial Collaboration Project.

As moderator Linda Rabieh said, "If we shrink from examining an issue because it might be perceived as offensive, hostile, or immoral, we will be unprepared for the tasks of allocating limited funding resources and establishing policy priorities, both of which require that we see issues clearly rather than as we want or hope them to be."

MFSA thanks all of last night's participants for generously giving their time to assist in our goal of modeling civil debate for the MIT community. We also thank our audience members who attended and participated in the debate Q&A, and all of our co-sponsoring organizations.

Contact: Peter Bonilla, MFSA Executive Director, peter@mitfreespeech.org. See the debate’s webpage for bios, photos, and further details.

Co-Sponsors:

The MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA) has over 1,200 members. Founded by MIT alumni in 2021 following the cancellation of Dorian Abbot’s Carlson Lecture. MFSA is a member of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, together with sister organizations at Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Virginia, among other institutions. MFSA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and is independent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.