At MIT, More Than 800 Alumni, Faculty, and Staff Take Issue with President Kornbluth

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REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/at-mit-more-than-800-alumni-faculty-and-staff-take-issue-with-president-kornbluth

President Sally Kornbluth of MIT, just like President Liz Magill of UPenn and President Claudine Gay of Harvard, fudged in her Congressional testimony, not clearly stating that calls for genocide were unacceptable on the MIT campus. All three claimed that “it would depend on the context,” whether such calls could be considered “bullying or harassment” and as such, punishable under their institution’s code of conduct. Both Gay and Magill later tried to mollify their critics by modifying their remarks. It did not work for Magill; she felt compelled to resign; Gay, despite a second, even deeper scandal, involving her newly-revealed extensive record of plagiarism, has been supported by the Harvard Corporation; no one wanted to fire “the first black president of Harvard.” Whether her quite visible protective shield will prevent her scandalous plagiarizing from sinking her in the end will be instructive to watch.

Meanwhile, President Kornbluth of MIT, the only one of the three who did not attempt subsequently to “clarify” her remarks before Congress in an attempt to mollify critics, has been similarly supported by the MIT Corporation. And judging by the alumni letter just made public, she has apparently done little on the MIT campus to deal with the rise in antisemitic rhetoric and harassment of Jewish students.

More than 800 people — most of them alumni, but also including faculty, staff, and parents of students — have signed the following letter, showing that many people — Jews and non-Jews — are most unhappy with how Kornbluth has dealt with antisemitism on the campus, and believe the MIT Corporation, in its vote of confidence, has chosen to overlook that record, treating her with kid gloves. More on this open letter, to which new signatories are being added every hour, can be found here: “An Open Letter From MIT Jewish Alumni and Allies on Campus Antisemitism,” MIT Jewish Alumni and MIT Allies, December 12, 2023:

Dear President Kornbluth, Provost Barnhart, Chancellor Nobles, and members of the MIT Corporation:

We are a growing group of MIT Jewish alumni and MIT allies writing to express our alarm over the Congressional testimony of President Kornbluth of December 5, 2023; the subsequent public relations fallout; and the continued failure of the MIT administration to address the growing antisemitism on MIT’s campus.

Calls for genocide of any group of people, including Jews, constitute bullying and harassment. Such calls originating from MIT’s campus should never be tolerated by the MIT administration and should instead be met with swift disciplinary consequences.

Yet, during the Congressional testimony of December 5, 2023, President Kornbluth implied that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MIT’s code of conduct, depending on context. Protecting violent antisemitic rhetoric on MIT’s campus, rather than Jewish victims of such rhetoric, sends a strong signal to the rest of the world that violent words of hate are acceptable, at least as they relate to the Jewish people. Understandably, President Kornbluth’s testimony was met with a public uproar….

A full list of signatories can be found here.

Will Kornbluth listen to this most modest and reasonable request of so many alumni? Or will she, buoyed by the Corporation’s vote of confidence in her, see no need to change her ways? Let us hope for the first, and fear for the second.