March 19, 2025
Sent to President Kornbluth and other members of the administration
March 19th, 2025
President Sally Kornbluth, PhD
77 Massachusetts Ave
3-208
Cambridge, MA 02139
Dear President Kornbluth,
We, the undersigned members and supporters of the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance, are keenly aware of your recent attention to the impact that initiation of Federal penalties will have on universities that continue to engage in civil rights violations. Your address of March 4th to the MIT community focused primarily on the threat to money streams and to cash flow to MIT, while also announcing a hiring freeze. A significant driver of current Federal hostility toward institutions of higher education, including MIT, results from the sponsoring by these institutions, of events that champion hate speech against Jews which serve to foster and worsen an environment already threatening to the Jewish community. The position of the Federal government on this matter is indisputable. As established by the US Departments of Justice and Education, as well as by members of the Senate and House of Representatives: “Antisemitism is clearly inconsistent with the fundamental values that should inform liberal education.” (https://www.ed.gov).
The cancellation, announced March 6, 2025, of approximately $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, should be a wake-up call for MIT. As with Columbia, MIT continues to be a target of investigation by the federal government for its failure to contain and to remediate antisemitic activities on its campus and its failure to discipline students engaged in such activities. For too long MIT has been derelict in its duty to provide equally to all its citizens – including Jews – a threat-free campus environment. With additional risk now of losing federal grant monies and contracts that support a large portion of MIT’s academic and research initiatives, MIT is now additionally demonstrating a lack of responsible stewardship.
Equally of concern, we were alarmed to learn of several MIT-sponsored events on campus that at best, offer a one-sided view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and promote false historical narratives, and at worst, are openly antisemitic. These events include:
- Screening of the documentary film, “From Ground Zero”, sponsored by the Office of Graduate Education (OGE). This film is comprised of a series of vignettes which depict life in Gaza after the start of the Israeli-Gaza war, and which fail to provide any physical or historical context, such as Hamas terror tunnels, hostages being executed, remaining hostages being held in Gaza under inhumane conditions, or mention of the October 7th massacre. Objective third parties have designated this film antisemitic.
- An event on March 18, 2025 entitled “On Irish Solidarity with Palestine” is co-sponsored by OGE, together with a group entitled “MIT Graduates for Palestine”. The group, MIT Graduates for Palestine, has openly supported Hamas in its social media posts. Promoting the false narrative of Palestinian “genocide” in its advertising of this event on social media, the MIT Graduate Student Counsel states “[t]he Irish have arguably gone further than any other Western country in challenging the Israeli occupation and the genocide in Gaza”.
- The OGE has not sponsored any events that present the Middle East conflict from an Israeli perspective. Instead, the OGE has chosen to platform only those voices that inspire hatred against the State of Israel, and by extension, against Jews. Denzil Streete, the Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Office of Graduate Education, has refused to provide an explanation to members of MIT’s Jewish community who have inquired as to why OGE has chosen to sponsor only prejudicial and hostile antisemitic events. Further, on X (formerly Twitter), Dean Streete has advocated for anti-Israel policies and has now converted his X account to private mode to mask previously published statements which negatively target Israel and the Jewish community.
- Further, in February, the Department of Urban Studies and Planning co-sponsored an event entitled, “A Lens Onto Ourselves – Gaza and a reckoning for urban planning”. The advertising page for this event uses language that has been used by various groups to promote and justify antisemitic violence, including use of the phrases, “expansionist violence of settler colonialism in Palestine”, “apartheid”, and “genocide” when referring to the war in Gaza, characterizing Palestinian violence against Jews as “resistance”. The Department of Urban Studies and Planning has sponsored no events highlighting the death and devastation that was inflicted by Hamas terrorists and their allies on Israel and Israelis on October 7, 2023 and beyond.
The Department of History is currently seeking to create two endowed professorships, one in Jewish History, and one in Arab and Palestinian History. Both hires have received Sally Kornbluth’s endorsement. The titles betray the intent: that a relationship exists between Arabs and Palestine that does not exist between Jews and Israel. Indeed, the two-page description of the professorship position in Jewish History does not mention Israel even once. MIT’s purpose: to memorialize in title and in scholastic pursuit the erasure of the indissoluble bond between Jews and Israel.
Finally, MIT is currently in the process of searching for its next Provost, a position pivotal to the future choice of direction MIT will take regarding its Jewish campus community. MIT has a duty to ensure that whoever serves in this capacity is charged with and has the qualifications to right the current direction and the current wrongs that have been committed by leadership.
Rather than face the withdrawal of Federal funding and the necessity to impose a hiring freeze of valuable faculty and researchers, we suggest the following:
- Remove all individuals within MIT’s administration and within MIT’s numerous departments who continue to demonstrate and promote, by word and by deed, hostility towards MIT’s Jewish and Israeli communities.
- Take steps to effectively discipline students and faculty who create a hostile environment for MIT’s Jewish students and faculty.
- End the practice of partial suspension that protects those who have espoused anti-Semitic views, made anti-Semitic statements, and violated MIT regulations, replacing this, where indicated, with full suspension.
- Amend hiring practices to ensure an end of support for faculty and administrators that promote and amplify antisemitic behavior and Jew-hatred on campus.
The direction chosen and the actions taken by MIT leadership towards the development of a strong legal and policy structure that may be used to effectively address antisemitism now deeply embedded within its administrative and departmental framework, should not be dependent upon risk to MIT’s federal funding. As with its scholarship, MIT should be the leader among its peers to condemn hate speech and antisemitic rhetoric, to challenge discriminatory narratives, and to provide a safe and secure environment for all its constituents equally. It is not.
While no one action, President Kornbluth, will resolve all concerns, prompt steps must be taken to support MIT’s Jewish community and to punish those who espouse and champion hate. MIT has the opportunity to be a counterbalance to other universities, such as Columbia and others, who have failed in their duty to protect their Jewish communities. The financial threat to MIT is in part a consequence of choices made by MIT, particularly since October 7th, to promote and advance the voices of those who strive to deny MIT’s Jewish constituents of their civil rights, their security, their well-being, and their safety.
You have the power to rectify this. We stand willing and able to help.
Sincerely,
The MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance
The link to the signature form is below (please scroll down to sign).
https://forms.gle/RskoMSkvzpt9a5xv9
There are over 300 signatures as of March 20, 2025.