Restoring Free Expression

Restoring Free Expression at MIT is Just Beginning

 


MIT’s adoption of its Statement on Freedom of Expression was a positive first step. But as President Kornbluth said in her message to the MIT community endorsing the Statement on Freedom of Expression, "for this statement to truly take root in and advance the interests of our community, we can’t just post it and hope for the best." To eliminate the climate that has forced large portions of the MIT community to practice self-censorship, a wide range of actions are needed to demonstrate to the community that things have changed back to what had once been normal for the Institute.



Ad Hoc Committee Report Recommendations

 

The full report by the Ad Hoc Committee on Freedom of Expression was extensive. It specified ten recommendations that the faculty committee felt would be constructive changes to begin restoring a culture of open, vigorous and intellectually rigorous dialog at MIT. President Kornbluth charged her executive team to form a team, with broad community representation, to review and reflect on the recommendations in the working group’s report and provide a roadmap of best next steps. To date, no announcement has been made that a team has been formed to review the recommendations. Other than the first recommendation, that MIT issue its own Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom, none of the other nine faculty recommendations have been implemented. The thoughtful and deliberate work that the faculty put into their report, and their recommendations to improve the culture around free expression, have largely been ignored.



MIT Actions

 

The Ad Hoc Committee’s 10th and final recommendation is that campus leaders undertake a promotional and educational program to advance free expression. Although not exactly the extensive program undertaken by campus leaders as envisioned by the faculty, MIT has begun some measures that model the discussion of diverse points of view specified in the faculty report.

  • Dialogues Across Difference
    In the spring of 2023, MIT inaugurated a series of on-campus speakers intended to enhance discourse across a range of perspectives on campus, strengthen connections among Institute community members, and demonstrating practical ways on engaging with difficult issues. The series is sponsored by the offices of the MIT President, the Provost, and the Chancellor, and intends to have a speaker each semester. The first presentation was by Dr. John Tomasi, president of the Heterodox Academy, on March 22, 2023.
  • Civil Discourse Project
    MIT’s Concourse program for first year students is launching a speaker series and curricular activities to promote open and civil discussion of difficult topics on the MIT campus. The  program will kick off on October 24, 2023, with a debate on the appropriate responses to climate change.
  • Heterodox Academy Chapter


MFSA Actions

 

The MIT Free Speech Alliance has undertaken to co-sponsor its own series of debates on campus to model civil and respectful dialog about controversial topics. The first debate, co-sponsored with the student group Adam Smith Society, was held on April 4, 2023, around the resolution: Resolved, that academic DEI programs should be abolished. In the quest to actually expand the Overton window for expression among the MIT community, MFSA held a civil debate on the topic over which Dr. Abbot’s presentation had been cancelled 1-1/2 years earlier. MFSA is targeting to co-sponsor an on-campus debate each semester on similarly controversial topics in the 2023-2024 academic year.

 

MFSA also provided some funding to support a course on free speech (24.150) in the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year.

 

The Challenge to Restoring a More Open Culture

 

Much work remains to be done to restore tolerance for freedom of expression and diverse viewpoints on the MIT campus. MFSA notes that there is a small but vocal faction within the MIT community that opposes returning to MIT’s previous culture of wide-ranging and unfettered discussion. Only 163 faculty members, out of a total MIT faculty of over 1,000 professors, signed the faculty statement urging MIT to adopt the Chicago Principles. Only 150 faculty members attended the meeting in which the faculty voted to adopt the Ad Hoc Committee’s Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. In that meeting, a third of the attendees (52) voted against adopting the Statement. These low numbers of involved faculty probably do not reflect apathy so much as fear of retaliation from the active opponents of free speech at MIT.

In addition, FIRE’s 2022 study of free speech on the MIT campus found that some minority of the MIT faculty approve of suppressing speech, canceling unpopular speakers, and not defending fellow faculty who make unpopular statements.

 

MFSA Recommendations

 

The cancel culture problem at MIT has become pernicious and pervasive throughout the Institute, it has become embedded over many years, and it continues to be reinforced by broader social forces opposing free speech. For these reasons, a strong and broad set of initiatives are needed to restore a free expression culture at MIT. The Ad Hoc Committee’s recommendations are all necessary, but they are hardly sufficient. The MIT Free Speech Alliance has made a more wide-ranging, specific and stronger set of recommendations to support free speech, viewpoint diversity and academic freedom at MIT.

 

Among its broader set of recommendations, MFSA is targeting three for immediate attention and action by the MIT administration. They are:

  • Add a module to freshman orientation explaining the Institute’s strong support for freedom of expression on campus, together with guidelines for engaging in civil and respectful disagreement.
  • Eliminate the anonymous reporting systems operated by the Administration. This specifically includes the use of the Institute Discrimination & Harassment Response Office and the Bias Response Team to police issues of speech, expression, and viewpoint. This also includes use of the Maxient system for recording social conduct reports on students without due process.
  • Eliminate compelled speech requirements, which require MIT faculty, staff and students to commit to specific political or ideological positions, regardless of the individual’s own viewpoints. Specifically, so-called DEI support statements should be eliminated completely, and should not be required for hiring, compensation adjustment, promotion, or funding. Examples of DEI statements required of all applicants for faculty positions are those of the Communication Lab and of Mechanical Engineering.

The MIT Free Speech Alliance is independent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.