Summer 2025 Letter from MFSA President Wayne Stargardt
Summer 2025 Letter from MFSA President Wayne Stargardt
July 31, 2025
To Members of the MIT Free Speech Alliance:
If we thought the spring of 2024 was a tumultuous time at MIT, the spring of 2025 has trumped it (gratuitous pun intended).
National headlines have been dominated by the federal government’s efforts to change the direction of higher education, particularly at elite research universities such as MIT. The Trump administration and the current Congress were elected last year for several reasons, one of which was opposition to the cultural direction of the United States. This culture shift had been led by universities, and the administration has singled out these institutions for reform. Their tools have been brutal, blunt, and far-reaching. In particular, the administration has decided to get universities’ attention by targeting their finances. MIT is one of many universities impacted by this strategy, and measures currently being discussed would alter MIT’s financial model and staffing levels.
To be clear, the roots of the administration’s attack on higher education lie in the failure of universities to adhere strictly to their traditional mission of seeking truth and promulgating knowledge. Instead, universities have subordinated this mission to cultural and social advocacy, pursuing goals such DEI, discrimination for and against specific identify groups, suppression of “uncomfortable” viewpoints, and a focus on Critical Theory-based advocacy. MFSA observes that with this shift, universities, including MIT, have abandoned open discourse, tolerance for diverse viewpoints, and unrestrained academic freedom. Universities are instead suppressing “incorrect” speech, cancelling heterodox voices, and moving away from intellectual meritocracy. This shift has also been evident in the troubling rise of antisemitism on many campuses. This has triggered a strong response by the federal government and a collapse in the public’s opinion of higher education.
While MFSA does not take a position on Critical Theory and its policy implications like DEI, we advocate that all individuals at a university should be able to express their viewpoints on these and other topics. We at MFSA have noted, however, that proponents of Critical Theory and DEI often do not share our respect for open discourse and are often the leading practitioners of speech suppression. It is this assault on freedom of expression that MFSA opposes.
At this midpoint of the year, the federal administration is still locked in an “all-of-government” campaign to force universities – especially elite ones like MIT – to change their cultures and return to their historic missions. This conflict over the future of higher education will continue to play out over the remainder of the year.
MFSA in the First Half of 2025
Against this turbulent backdrop, I would like to review some of the more significant accomplishments of the MIT Free Speech Alliance in the first half of the year, including successes on plans we announced in
my letter to members at the beginning of the year.
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MFSA co-sponsored our fifth debate on campus
The on-campus debates which we sponsor reflect our on-going effort to widen the Overton window of subjects that can be discussed on campus and to model intellectual, civil discussion of these controversial topics. The April 2025 debate addressed
whether the gap between men and women in STEM enrollment and faculty should be closed. Appropriately, this marked our first all-women event. As with our previous debates, a recording of this event can be viewed on
our Youtube channel. Our debates are serious and intellectual, and their recordings continue to attract people seeking informed, civil discussions of controversial topics.
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MFSA increased its national visibility and reputation
MFSA made notable progress on this objective for 2025. As MFSA president, I presented at the
Censorship in the Sciences Conference in January, reviewing years of polling data indicating significant self-censorship among MIT faculty. MFSA also sponsored a
panel of STEM faculty at the annual
Heterodox Academy Conference in June. The panel discussed the evolving role of STEM faculty in university governance and culture and explored ways to increase their involvement.
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MFSA sponsored other events at MIT to promote open discourse
In addition to our debates, MFSA expanded its programming in 2025 to further increase open discourse and viewpoint diversity at MIT. Consistent with this goal, we co-sponsored presentations by speakers on or near campus. In February we co-sponsored a presentation by heterodox author
Musa al-Gharbi. In May we sponsored a presentation by author Jenera Nerenberg on her new book,
Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing. That same month MFSA also co-sponsored the
22nd annual MIT Sloan CIO symposium.
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MFSA continued to advocate for freedom of expression at MIT
MFSA continued to champion free speech and support the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression. Specifically, we issued a
public statement commenting on elimination of MIT’s top level DEI plan and central DEI office, while noting that the speech suppressive and viewpoint-constraining influence of these policies and personnel persist at MIT. We also
commented on a student speaker’s disruption of the OneMIT commencement ceremony, endorsing the discipline MIT imposed for clear, duplicitous violation of its time, place, and manner restrictions on campus expression. These public statements, as well as our private communications with MIT administration, help fulfill another stated objective for 2025.
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MFSA grew our leadership team and volunteer group
MFSA maintained good governance by refreshing
our Board of Directors as the fixed terms of some of our original Directors ended. Long-time MFSA volunteer and elected MIT AASC member Steve Carhart ’70, SM ’72, joined the Board. Also joining our Board is Frank Laukien ’84, a serial entrepreneur, a Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard member, and a Heterodox Academy Board member.
We expanded our
Executive Committee by adding MIT Professor Emeritus Ian Hutchinson as Chair of the MFSA Faculty Liaison Committee. Ian is one of the founding Co-Presidents of the MIT Council on Academic Freedom. Additionally, Pete Denton ’67 and Neil Webber ’86 joined as Co-Chairs of our Fundraising Committee, bolstering our fundraising activities.
Plans for the remainder of 2025
We set our objectives for 2025 at the start of the year, and they remain largely unchanged for the remainder. Some specific objectives deserve emphasis.
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Continue to advocate specific changes to foster freedom of expression
Last year, MFSA published comprehensive
Recommendations to support freedom of expression at MIT. We will continue to advocate that MIT adopt all these common sense measures. Our five
high priority recommendations are explained in detail on our website:
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Adopt institutional neutrality
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Stop administrative policing of protected speech
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Establish a permanent organization within MIT to support freedom of expression
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Clearly explain MIT’s free speech values and policies to students
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Educate administrative staff on the importance of free expression and viewpoint diversity.
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Hold our third annual conference
Building on the success of previous conferences, our third conference will focus on how members of the MIT community can advance a culture of free and open expression. The conference will showcase the prospectives of faculty, students, the administration, the MIT Corporation, and alumni. Our conference will be held on September 25, the day before MIT’s Alumni Leadership Conference, to make it convenient for ALC attendees to join us. Public intellectual Jonathon Rauch of the Brookings Institute will deliver the keynote address. Please plan to attend this in-person event if you live in the Boston area or if you are traveling to Cambridge for ALC.
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Co-sponsor our sixth debate on campus
In the fall semester, we will continue building on our track record of modeling civil disagreement over a contentious topics. As usual, we will co-sponsor a debate on a subject relevant to the MIT community.
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Continue support for the faculty
In an environment in which many faculty fear retaliations for expressing their viewpoints, MFSA positions itself as a steadfast advocate for their intellectual and academic freedom. We will continue to support the
MIT Council on Academic Freedom, the
Committee on Academic Freedom and Campus Expression, and all individual faculty who are throwing off the self-imposed constraints of self-censorship, regardless of the topic.
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Grow our membership
Although MIT remains in the media crosshairs, most alumni are still unaware of the extent to which cancel culture has affected the MIT campus and suppressed free expression. We continue to reach out to non-member alumni to educate them about campus climate and invite them to join our campaign to restore free speech, viewpoint diversity and academic freedom at the Institute. Our members are our best ambassadors, so we encourage you to connect with your friends and classmates.
The tide is turning, and MIT’s support for free speech, viewpoint diversity, and academic freedom is starting to improve. There are reasons to be optimistic that MIT can preserve its exceptionalism and remain the leader in STEM research, education, and scholarship. Admittedly there is still too much self-censorship on campus and much work remains, but our advocacy is making progress.
Thank you for supporting our critical mission. You are a member of the largest independent organization of MIT graduates. Your membership reflects your high regard for MIT, your respect for its distinctive exceptionalism, and your dedication to preserving it as the world’s leading STEM university. Your membership also enables us to work to restore the culture of this remarkable institution. We primarily rely on the effort and expertise of our two dozen volunteers and can always use more help. Many volunteer roles do not require a significant time commitment, so please consider getting involved.
We also rely on member donations to fund our events and support our programming for faculty and students. If you agree that MFSA is making a positive impact on MIT, then please consider making a financial contribution to support our shared cause.
Sincerely,
Wayne Stargardt ‘74
President, MIT Free Speech Alliance