MIT faulted over its support for students
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MIT faulted over its support for students
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Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#2Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students
Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz.
Swartz was never a student at MIT.
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#3Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.
> Swartz was never a student at MIT.
But he represented values for which the MIT stands in its self-characterisation.
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#4So this story is from February 14, 2014, and contains a bit of "he said, MIT said"...there must be an update by now?
> “Students are being threatened with legal action for doing exactly what we encourage them to do: explore and create innovative new technologies,” wrote Hal Abelson, a computer science professor; Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT; and Media Lab graduate student Nathan Matias.
The school says it's a misunderstanding:
> MIT provost Martin A. Schmidt said Thursday evening that there had been a misunderstanding. MIT advised the students to get their own lawyer who would be solely focused on their best interest, he said.
“It was never our intent to say we can’t support you,” he said in an interview. “Now that they have that counsel, the Institute stands by its students and we are prepared to support them and their counsel in whatever way we can to help them in this defense.”
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#5This has been long time coming.
These days if a student or young person does what Steve Jobs (phone device) or Bill Gates (exploiting bugs for more Computer time) did and got away with, they face lawsuits and decades in Jail.
It is up to Universities like MIT to aggressively intervene in these cases and ensure that young people are free to (some extent) break systems and exploit system weaknesses in the interest of learning.
MIT did the opposite in the Aaron Shwartz case, their conduct was in large part responsible for Ortiz & Heyman getting Aaron over a barrel of 30 years in the pokey. They miserably failed in their moral obligations in that case - and the time is long past for changes to this policy.
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#6There are any number of alternative headlines for this story that would not only be less misleading, but also more succinct.
It doesn't surprise me that the Boston Globe would want to stay on good terms with a major local power, but there are limits.
Consider instead: MIT Faulted for Lack of Support; Student Support Faulted at MIT; Students to MIT: Support Please!....
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#7Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.
If you'd like MIT students who were impacted by the administration's callous lack of support, consider:
- the MBTA "hackers", 2008: http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit...
- Star Simpson, 2007: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2...
- Ryan McKinley's "Government Information Awareness", 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarene...
- Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, 2002, XBox hacker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang
- Ladyada, 2002: http://www.ladyada.net/pub/research.html
- David LaMacchia, 1994: http://cd.textfiles.com/group42/WAREZ/LAMACCHI.HTM
And these are only a few cases that made headlines; there are many additional controversies handled more quietly. The point remains that the MIT General Counsel's office exists to protect the institute, not the students, even while MIT's culture rewards innovative, boundary-pushing work.
The point at issue here is that MIT needs a legal support structure for such students commensurate with its encouragement of the work.
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#8Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.
Isn't that why they used the word "also"?
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#9Old news. MIT administration has responded in a pretty reasonable manner.
Re: MIT faulted over its support for students
#10Headline: MIT faulted over its support for students Caption under picture: Critics say MIT also should have intervened in the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was never a student at MIT.
If you'd like MIT students who were impacted by the administration's callous lack of support, consider: - the MBTA "hackers", 2008: http://www.openmediaboston.org/content/mbta-suit-against-mit... - Star Simpson, 2007: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2... - Ryan McKinley's "Government Information Awareness", 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Information_Awarene... - Andrew "Bunn…
I don't know of any university that would stand up for their students. My old school doesn't even do tenure anymore so they can muzzle the staff, and is run by successive former political hacks who all chaired some partisan fundraising society and were parachuted into the dean's office through cronyism. The associate and vice presidents are real estate speculators and lobbyists or did party fundraising who've been busy building large private condos on endowment land to sell to foreign investors in order to personally profit.
Defending a student from feds means risking their careers since they only got these positions through political connections. All of them go on to the Dept of Foreign Affairs or some other government appointed position. This is just a stepping stone for them, who cares about students.