{"id":123446,"date":"2023-03-02T00:04:42","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T05:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=123446"},"modified":"2023-03-01T20:42:12","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T01:42:12","slug":"mit-disputes-claim-it-canceled-pompeo-speech-to-avoid-offending-chinese-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/mit-disputes-claim-it-canceled-pompeo-speech-to-avoid-offending-chinese-students\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT disputes claim it canceled Pompeo speech to avoid offending Chinese students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>University said COVID restrictions made event infeasible<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently disputed the claim by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it canceled his speech over concerns about offending students from China.<\/p>\n<p>The allegations surround a planned speech in 2020, but only came to light after Secretary Pompeo published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Never-Give-Inch-Fighting-America\/dp\/0063247445\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a book<\/a> in January, which made the claim.<\/p>\n<p>He is considered a potential candidate for president in 2024 and served in President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency as well.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Never-Give-Inch-Fighting-America\/dp\/0063247445\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">memoir<\/a> titled \u201cNever Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,\u201d Pompeo wrote that MIT canceled his planned speech about the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s influence in higher education.<\/p>\n<p>Pompeo\u2019s team set up a speech at MIT but later &#8220;received a call a couple weeks before [the] scheduled remarks,\u201d Pompeo (<em>pictured<\/em>) wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u2018We\u2019re sorry, but we will be unable to host the secretary on our campus,\u2019 came the message. In the end, the president of MIT, Rafael Reif, made clear that the risk of offending his Chinese students was too great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MIT disagreed with Pompeo\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<p>Spokesperson Kimberly Allen referred <em>The College Fix<\/em> to a Twitter thread where the university explained that it never approved the event due to limitations on large gatherings as a result of the outbreak of COVID.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">1\/ Setting the record straight: Pre-vaccine in 2020, when Sec. Pompeo&#8217;s staff inquired about a speech at MIT, we could not accept to host because of our then policies on Covid \u2013 no guests and no gatherings greater than 10 people. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hGEidA1pDe\">https:\/\/t.co\/hGEidA1pDe<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MITCommsVP (@MITCommsVP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MITCommsVP\/status\/1619067404600119298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 27, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary Pompeo was not scheduled to speak at MIT. MIT was contacted by a member of the Secretary\u2019s staff in August 2020, seeking a venue for Secretary Pompeo to speak later in the fall,\u201d Allen told <em>The Fix<\/em>. \u201cThe Institute could not accept the proposal to host because doing so would have flown in the face of its then-policies on COVID: No guests and no gatherings greater than 10 people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pompeo\u2019s publisher HarperCollins Publishers did not respond to a <em>Fix<\/em> request to get connected to the former secretary of state. Pompeo did not respond to a Twitter direct message sent in the past month.<\/p>\n<p>The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which drew attention to Pompeo\u2019s claims in a letter sent to the university, said \u201cquestions remain\u201d after MIT\u2019s official response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPompeo asserts that the university confirmed it would host the event and went so far as to agree on a date for it, but then backtracked, with former President Rafael Reif specifically <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/01\/26\/the-mike-pompeo-speech-on-chinas-influence-on-us-universities-that-mit-killed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">citing<\/a> \u2018the risk of offending his Chinese students,\u2019\u201d the group wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMIT should clarify whether the event was planned, despite campus COVID-19 restrictions, or if it was never scheduled at all,\u201d Senior Scholar Sarah McLaughlin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefire.org\/about-us\/our-team\/sarah-mclaughlin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cFurther, it should clarify whether its president indeed cited Pompeo\u2019s opinions as the impetus for the cancellation, rather than a viewpoint-neutral policy governing in-person events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/mit-faculty-increasingly-afraid-to-express-their-views-survey-finds\/\">MIT faculty &#8216;increasingly afraid to express their views,&#8217; survey finds<\/a><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: Department of State\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n            <div class=\"article-truncate-control\">\n                <button class=\"show-complete-article\">\n                    Read More                <\/button>\n            <\/div>\n\n        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>University said COVID restrictions made event infeasible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1253,"featured_media":123453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1085,1077],"tags":[46814,29527,45324,374,48452,12214,25736,44966,25701],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MikePompeo.DepartmentofState.WikimediaCommons72.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Oh4L-w74","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123446"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123467,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123446\/revisions\/123467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}