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Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

freespeech.mit.edu

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Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#61

Post by yucky »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #57
evancoop wrote: post #7

Most responses to this will be positive, and they should be. Typically, the real evaluation is the market (will more students and professors be drawn to MIT?). However, there is already a tremendous demand for admission (from students) and competitive hiring processes (for professors). So...how many other comparable institutions will follow suit? Will universities in California adopt, oppose, or ignore?

Universities in California are going in precisely the other direction by mandating ideological purity tests aka "diversity statements" for staff. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2019/11/24/uc-davis-math-prof...

>mandating ideological purity tests

Are we saying that its bad? I mean, I think it's bad, but it is in fact "progressive" so I dunno what the consensus is.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#62

Post by tokai »

gadders wrote: post #59
tokai wrote: post #21

Is this really needed? I'm not trying to be obstinate. But in the north european country where I reside, while we have hate speech laws etc., my speech is protected by the law - both from the state and my employer (a university). This commitment seems very bombastic for what feels like a work environment policy to me. Am I misunderstanding something cultural here? EDIT: thx for the comments, it makes it more sense to…

If you have hate speech laws, then your speech is not protected.

Thats my point. Even with hate speech laws the protection is apparently still better than in the US.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#63

Post by funcDropShadow »

ModernMech wrote: post #40
oefrha wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, this is actually a lot worse than it sounds. Rather than requiring an arguably hollow oath like the infamous UC loyalty oath from the 50s, they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that. You don’t get a job without demonstrating tangible contributions to DEI in the past (no, treating everyone equally doesn’t count) and plans to promote it in the future. According…

Why is this a bad thing? Part of a faculty’s job is to do community service and to manage a diverse classroom. Faculty who have a good handle on the issues that arise through teaching such a diverse classroom are better equipped to handle the job. It’s no different than judging them based on the their research or teaching experience, which are also part of the job. If an applicant doesn’t understand the salient DEI i…

Because they are supposed to be top researchers in their field. And I doubt you'll find a world-wide renowned scientist in biology who believes sex is merely a social construct. So these goals are at least partially incompatible. Universities should be about research, science, teaching and teaching students to educate themselves. Following the dogma of DEI is incompatible with teaching students to educate themselves.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#64

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

fallingknife wrote: post #54
roenxi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point there has to be trust in people to be reasonable in their interpretation. If that trust isn't possible, the only available strategy is to try and purge the entire administrative apparatus and replace it rather than attempting to play word games. Word games are there to be lost. This statement is pretty clear that the intent is to allow speech that some people find offensive.

Problem is that there can be no trust since this statement is coming from a group that disinvited a lecturer on climate science because he opposed DEI initiatives https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/06/mit-controver... . Actions speak louder than words. Purging and rebuilding the entire administrative apparatus of the US university system is actually a great idea, and for more reasons than just freedom of exp…

I see here a climate scientist advocating for public education policy without seeming educated himself on the subject (advocating for trial runs of charter schools and voucher programs as if they haven’t already been tested and studies borne out). I don’t really see the canceling here, it sounds like his talk are moved from one audience to another audience still at MIT, his public advocacy in a field he doesn’t study was published in a national paper, and somehow he’s “cancelled”?

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#65

Post by zozbot234 »

ModernMech wrote: post #53
zozbot234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirements are not limited to "understand[ing] the salient DEI issues" in an abstract, neutral sense; going by the scoring rubric, they're explicitly demanding a statement of ideological conformity-- as well as a personal commitment to an especially divisive, controversial, dubiously-effective approach to mitigating DEI challenges-- that goes further than what was previously "expected of all faculty". That's wh…

Again, that's not about belief, that's about the reality that the student body is diverse, the school wants the student body to be diverse, and the classroom itself will accordingly be diverse. What specifically about the rubric is the most troubling to you? By the way, as someone who hires faculty and reads many such statements (I have to ask, have you read any DEI statements? Do you have examples which you find esp…

> a discussion about how current efforts are dubiously effective would be a welcome and would help your application at my institution.

A required statement as part of applying for any faculty position or promotion is simply not the appropriate place for such a discussion. You're expecting what amounts to a serious research effort in social science. This kind of intervention in effective leverage points of a complex system (even if perhaps only a "system of oppression", as often described by those most concerned about DEI) is the stuff that research papers are made of, not short statements of conformity.

(Of course, this assumes that effective mitigation of DEI challenges is the actual goal of these requirements. It's not unreasonable to be rather skeptical about this, as the original professor who raised the issue - who is a social scientist - states in his blog post series.)

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#66

Post by JohnWhigham »

Invictus0 wrote: post #4

This is likely in response to the recent Dorian Abbot cancellation: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/620352/ (Sorry about the AMP link, I couldn't figure out how to get a normal link.)

That's funny. So what does this change actually mean? Next time this won't happen?

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#67

Post by ModernMech »

zozbot234 wrote: post #56
ModernMech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own. That's not really what's going on here. First of all, you're not really understanding the faculty hiring process. The DEI aspect is just one of many considered, and the people who have most direct impact on the hiring process are the department and college dean, not the DEI office who produced this website. Secondly, to the…

The DEI aspect is "one of many considered", but the scoring rubric says that applicants who do not score above a cutoff on DEI issues will not be considered. It's in fact not scoring neutral "knowledge" of posited DEI issues but ideological belief in their relevance, and it scores "experience" in furthering DEI by matching the adherence of said 'experience' to an especially divisive and controversial approach, and de…

> but the scoring rubric says that applicants

Like I said, "the scoring rubric" is not the arbiter of the faculty hiring process. Neither is the DEI office. It's not just one of many things considered, it's quite minimal when stacked next to research experience.

That said, a cutoff here is entirely appropriate. Look at what the lowest scoring entries are on the rubric. They are characterized statements of this caliber as as "vague", "little expressed knowledge", "little demonstrated awareness", "seems to be not aware", "no specifics", "brief descriptions" etc. Why would a department want to accept a faculty member who communicates vaguely, with no specifics, and seem unaware of the salient issues? This isn't about "They don't believe the right things". It's about "They don't believe anything".

And anyway, you're giving the rubric more rigidity than it deserves just because it's presented as a rubric. It explicitly states this:

  These examples are offered as illustrative suggestions; they are neither exhaustive nor ironclad. They can be modified to fit the academic and disciplinary backgrounds of applicants in a particular search. Faculty members in individual units should use their disciplinary expertise to understand what examples are likely most appropriate for their particular department or search.
So really, this whole document is just a fancy way to frame a suggestion that you should really think hard about DEI issues on your application.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#68

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

funcDropShadow wrote: post #63
ModernMech wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this a bad thing? Part of a faculty’s job is to do community service and to manage a diverse classroom. Faculty who have a good handle on the issues that arise through teaching such a diverse classroom are better equipped to handle the job. It’s no different than judging them based on the their research or teaching experience, which are also part of the job. If an applicant doesn’t understand the salient DEI i…

Because they are supposed to be top researchers in their field. And I doubt you'll find a world-wide renowned scientist in biology who believes sex is merely a social construct. So these goals are at least partially incompatible. Universities should be about research, science, teaching and teaching students to educate themselves. Following the dogma of DEI is incompatible with teaching students to educate themselves.

I think you’ve misinterpreted the common meme. The common meme is that gender or race are social constructs. I haven’t heard the meme sex is a social construct.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#69

Post by shadowgovt »

verisimi wrote: post #46
shadowgovt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such invitations are often extended by organizations in the university, not the university itself. Those organizations can definitely be politically far afield from the university median. The test of a declaration like this will be how the school responds when another organization on campus reacts to such an invitation by protesting it.

[flagged]

> It used to be a common expression in left wing circles to say - 'I may not agree with your views, but I will fight for your right to say them'. Sadly those are long gone.

The way I do the math, I wouldn't say they were long gone... I trace the death to approximately 2017. It was a philosophy predicated on a certain amount of tit for tat, and I think that philosophy took a big hit when during a pretty bog-standard protest / counter-protest someone stabbed the left wing protesters in the back (or, more accurately, drove a car into them from behind).

Other people may identify first shot fired in different places... The man in Seattle who got shot and the aggressor claimed self-defense, for example... But enough incidents happened in a short enough amount of time that "defend to your death the right to say it" got supplanted by "No quarter for fascists" and not enough people stood up to shout that opinion down because, well, people were getting killed.

I don't know how one puts the genie back in the bottle. It may not be tractable without people getting tired of violence. And historically, that can take a long time.

Re: Improving MIT’s written commitment to freedom of expression

#70

Post by thematrixturtle »

coffeeisyummy wrote: post #38
mrd3v0 wrote: post #8

Taking this with a grain of salt after what they have done to rms.

RMS brought it on himself. Although, yes, MIT turned a blind eye to his behavior until his comments about Epstein.

If you read what RMS actually wrote, it's kind of hard to disagree with the line of argument:

"It is morally absurd to define 'rape' in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17".

Of course, it was incredibly tone deaf to write this out in a thread about Epstein no less, and promptly got twisted into "RMS advocates raping little children".

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