The Blog

2021-

2021-11-14 b
THE STATE OF THE DISUNION II
(Letters like this might change some universities bent on self-destruction. The ones with huge endowments won't care.)

Goodbye, MIT

As the university increasingly caves to “wokeness,” two alumni explain why they are withdrawing their financial support.

We graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology more than 50 years ago. MIT was academically rigorous, and it taught us our crafts and the essence of problem-solving, enabling us to thrive in our careers. We owe much to our alma mater and have donated to it regularly.

No more.

The current MIT administration has caved repeatedly to the demands of “wokeness,” treating its students unfairly, compromising the quality of its staff, and damaging the institution and academic freedom at large.

We object to MIT’s politically correct measures, including the firing of its Catholic chaplain. In the early days of the George Floyd protests, before the details of Floyd’s [fentanyl overdose] death were clear, Father Daniel Moloney sent a letter outlining his thoughts on the event to the university’s Catholic community. It was a sincere examination of conscience from a person whose job it was to examine conscience, yet it prompted his immediate dismissal. MIT’s leadership apparently took umbrage at his statement of these simple facts: that George Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life” (based on his multiple criminal convictions) and that “most people in the country have framed [Floyd’s death] as an act of racism. I don’t think we know that.”

Moloney did not present these statements as justification for Floyd’s death; to the contrary, his letter begins, “George Floyd was killed by a police officer, and shouldn’t have been.” But MIT found the letter intolerable and fired the chaplain. (We are not Catholic, by the way, but believe fairness transcends religion.) (read more)

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