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Dear members of the MIT community,

The war in the Middle East continues to cause anguish and conflict here at MIT. Some have expressed their views through the encampment on the Kresge lawn. My team and I, as well as many faculty members, have engaged in extensive conversation with these students and have not interfered as they have continued their protest. However, given developments over the past several days, I must now take action to bring closure to a situation that has disrupted our campus for more than two weeks.
My sense of urgency comes from an increasing concern for the safety of our community. I know many of you feel strongly that the encampment should be allowed to continue indefinitely – that the protest is simply a peaceful exercise of the right to free expression, and that normal rules around campus conduct shouldn’t apply in the face of such tragic loss of life in Gaza.
But I am responsible for this community. Without our 24-hour staffing, students sleeping outside overnight in tents would be vulnerable. And no matter how peaceful the students’ behavior may be, unilaterally taking over a central portion of our campus for one side of a hotly disputed issue and precluding use by other members of our community is not right. This situation is inherently highly unstable.
What’s more, the threat of outside interference and potential violence is not theoretical, it is real: We have all seen circumstances around encampments at some peer institutions degenerate into chaos. As recently as this weekend, we were presented with firm evidence of outside interference on US campuses, including widely disseminated literature that advocates escalation, with very clear instructions and suggested means, including vandalism.
Our own campus has seen a variety of actions involving people from outside MIT, including a series of rallies organized by people who have no MIT affiliation. An outside group is planning another campus disruption here this afternoon.
Many of you have sent me messages noting that the two large rallies – which brought many people from outside MIT to campus last Friday and shut down Massachusetts Avenue – occurred peacefully. But this apparent equilibrium required extraordinary preparation and enormous effort by hundreds of staff, faculty, and police, including, as the rallies were winding down, expert work by MIT Police to defuse several tense confrontations.
In short, this prolonged use of MIT property as a venue for protest, without permission, especially on an issue with such sharp disagreement, is no longer safely sustainable. I note that the faculty-led Committee on Academic Freedom and Campus Expression (CAFCE) recently concluded that these actions, a form of civil disobedience, carry consequences.
We have directed students to leave the encampment peacefully by 2:30 p.m. today. We’ve provided them with a letter from Chancellor Nobles that gives as much clarity as possible about the choices they have, and the pathways associated with each of these choices. You can read this information below my signature.
I hoped these measures could be avoided through our efforts to engage the students in serious good-faith discussion. But recent events, and my responsibility to ensure the physical safety of our community, oblige us to act now.
MIT can and should continue to be a place where we can discuss and seek to address contentious issues. But we are also a community of doers—of people with the skills and drive to make the world better. And no matter our political beliefs or our position on this war, we can all recognize the immense suffering unfolding in Gaza. I believe our best contribution would be to focus our collective efforts on projects that bring MIT’s expertise to bear on the humanitarian crisis in the region. I’ve begun discussing this idea with faculty leaders.

Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

Excerpt from Chancellor Melissa Nobles' letter to students involved in the encampment
“Our goal is to bring the encampment to a peaceful end. Below are the choices you have:
I. For those who leave the encampment voluntarily by 2:30 pm:

1. If you have not been sanctioned by the COD [Committee on Discipline] and do not have any pending COD cases related to events since October 7, and you have not contributed significantly as a leader or organizer of the encampment, this letter serves as a written warning. You must swipe your ID as you leave the encampment, and the written warning, together with the time stamp from your exit swipe showing you departed by 2:30 pm, will be kept on file with MIT. A written warning means you are on notice that any further violation of MIT policies and rules could lead to a more severe sanction. The written warning will be the only disciplinary action for participating in the encampment.

2. If you have been sanctioned by the COD or have a pending COD case related to events since October 7, or have contributed significantly as a leader or organizer of the encampment, you will be referred to the COD, but your voluntary departure from the encampment by 2:30 pm today will be a significant mitigating factor when the COD reviews your case. You must swipe your ID as you leave the encampment, and we will keep on file the time stamp from your exit swipe showing you departed by 2:30 pm.
   II. For those who do not leave the encampment voluntarily by 2:30 pm:

3. If you have not been sanctioned by the COD and do not have any pending COD cases related to events since October 7, but choose to stay in the encampment past the deadline, you will be placed on an immediate interim academic suspension lasting at least through Institute commencement activities, and you will be referred to the COD. This means you will be prohibited from participating in any academic activities – including classes, exams, or research – for the remainder of the semester. You will also be prohibited from participating in commencement activities or any co-curricular activities. During the period of your interim academic suspension, you will be permitted to reside in your assigned residence hall through the end of the semester, use your meal plan at MIT dining halls, and utilize services at MIT Health. Continued additional protests or disruptions that are not authorized will be considered an aggravating factor in the COD review of your case.

4. If you either have been sanctioned by the COD or have a pending COD case related to events since October 7, but choose to stay in the encampment past the deadline, you will be placed on an immediate interim full suspension lasting at least through Institute commencement activities, and you will be referred to the COD. This means you will be prohibited from participating in any academic activities – including classes, exams, or research – for the remainder of the semester. You will also be prohibited from participating in commencement activities or any cocurricular activities. You will also not be permitted to reside in your assigned residence hall or use MIT dining halls. You must leave campus immediately, but you will continue to have access to services at MIT Health. Continued additional protests or disruptions that are not authorized will be considered an aggravating factor in the COD review of your case.”

I think it's deeply inappropriate for the GSU - which is funded by all grad students, including Israeli students - to be promoting one side of a pet political issue such as the Palestine/Israel conflict. This is not the purpose of the GSU - the GSU is meant to advocate with the MIT administration for material things that benefit all grad students equally - such as salary, housing cost, vacation, etc.

I get the impression that certain GSU officers are treating the GSU funding as a personal "slush fund".

It is especially problematic because many people will feel too intimidated to speak up against this, for fear of attracting harassment. This is no idle fear - many people have already been harassed.

Again, I think that GSU should not be involved with this. It is clearly discriminatory against grad students who disagree, such as Israeli or Jewish students, and against people who would rather just steer clear of the conflict.

If people want to join or support protests, that's 100% fine with me. Just do it through a different organization that doesn't purport to represent all MIT grad students.

UPDATE - As people have pointed out in the comments, the GSU is apparently now involved in at least 2 lawsuits brought by grad students for discrimination related to the Palestine issue. Links:

https://www.nrtw.org/news/mit-gsu-beck-charge-04262024/

https://www.nrtw.org/news/jewish-mit-students-eeoc-03212024/

So now our membership fees will be disappearing into their legal defense. Wonderful.

Did anyone in a stem degree get humbled from being the best in high school?

As most of you know, a list of supposed IDF funding was circulated to the MIT community, naming PIs. What you may not know is that the PIs on that list are getting harassing phone calls, as are their students. (Even the ones whose PI's projects are expired.) A representative of MIT Coalition for Palestine also e-mailed those students directly, telling them to "take the action you feel is appropriate" and suggesting that they "reject this funding."

However, the list itself is a total sham. I know for a fact that one of the alleged expired projects wasn't a project at all. It was the salary of an Israeli postdoc with a fellowship. This postdoc wanted to work on the existing project at MIT (one with zero military application, BTW), got a fellowship from the Israeli MOD, and was allowed to join the project by the PI because he was free to the PI.

That is one of the fourteen projects. I suspect that most, if not all, are funding for Israeli postdocs and students. In general, there seems to be a misconception at work here. No military—not the U.S. military, not the IDF—funds weapon research at universities. They fund basic research, research that could maybe one day have an application. Anything with any immediate military application at all happens in military labs. But actually, the main goal of these kinds of fellowships is workforce development: training people who could work in military labs or who could become professors who train people who could work in military labs.

And no, it's not simple to just move them onto another project. The whole point of a fellowship is that it makes you attractive to prospective PIs because you're funding yourself. PIs don't have huge pots of unspent funding in their coffers, and funded positions are orders of magnitude more competitive (meaning they can get much better students/postdocs).

Maybe the person who made and circulated that list should have done some research before accusing MIT professors and students of enabling genocide.

Edit: To clarify, I can only speak about one project for a fact because I have personal knowledge of it. But almost all of the funding levels are too small to be real projects, including the active ones. This suggests they are mostly fellowships.

The person who compiled the list has access to all of the detailed budget justifications that would clarify the nature of the funding, but chose not to release that information. Releasing a list of names and numbers with no other information is irresponsible at least and dangerous at worst.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-05/ackman-wants-plagiarism-checks-on-mit-faculty-after-wife-accused

This thing has V instead of U in institute and massachusetts, why???

Lately there's been some controversy about Lex Fridman and whether he did proper science and teaching at MIT beyond the mere minimum to get himself associated with MIT. Do the criticisms have any basis or is that just haters being haters?

The final lecture of MIT Professor Gilbert Strang will be today (May 15) at 11am ET. His books and lectures in various mathematical topocs, mainly linear algebra, are used by almost every university student and professor.

Watch the live-stream at the link below https://grinfeld.org/strang

Source (LinkedIn)