{"id":139638,"date":"2024-01-01T00:02:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T05:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=139638"},"modified":"2024-01-02T08:00:36","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T13:00:36","slug":"mit-student-group-continues-the-fight-for-free-speech-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/mit-student-group-continues-the-fight-for-free-speech-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT student group continues the fight for free speech in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>&#8216;We are proving that the mob is not at all omnipotent,&#8217; group leader said<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>An upstart Massachusetts Institute of Technology group said it plans to continue to fight for free speech and open debate heading into its second semester.<\/p>\n<p>While not all students and faculty agree with Students for Open Inquiry\u2019s speakers, \u201cthey appreciate the significance of our mission in the grand scheme of restoring free speech to campus,\u201d Spencer Sindhusen told <em>The College Fix<\/em> via email. Sindhusen said he is the \u201cco-pilot\u201d of the new group.<\/p>\n<p>MITSOI will host more speakers for MIT students and the general public in the spring, such as MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen, \u201cwho [the university] has censored due to his unconventional views on climate science,\u201d Sindhusen told<em> The Fix.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Nov. 30, the group hosted Steve Kirsch (<em>pictured, right<\/em>), an entrepreneur, inventor, and COVID-19 vaccine critic, who delivered a talk on vaccine data and censorship in academia,<em> The Fix <\/em>previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/new-mit-free-speech-group-hosts-covid-vaccine-critic-scientist-steve-kirsch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kirsch \u201cred-pilled a packed audience,\u201d according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/mitsoi.com\/rubicon.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news release<\/a> from the group. \u201cDrawing on sources from New Zealand, Israel, and the Maldives, and examining US nursing home data, Kirsch painted a devastating picture never displayed before by mainstream outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"rumble\" src=\"https:\/\/rumble.com\/embed\/v3w3i9y\/?pub=gavb5\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The Fix<\/em> reached out twice over the past two weeks to MIT Professor Robert Langer, who turned down Kirsch\u2019s $10M offer to debate vaccines at his MITSOI event, Kirsch <a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/stevekirsch\/p\/i-just-offered-mit-institute-professor?r=o7iqo&amp;utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> in his Substack newsletter. Langer did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The group also offered a question and answer session with Republican presidential candidate Hirsh Singh, who addressed topics such as American economics and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. In an email <a href=\"https:\/\/mitsoi.com\/con1.html\">exchange<\/a> with MITSOI posted to its website, a group whose name MITSOI had redacted suggested via email the event be canceled because of Singh&#8217;s criticisms of transgender ideology and &#8220;gender-affirming care.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Singh&#8217;s views, as outlined on his website, appear to be not just conservative but actively harmful, particularly towards transgender individuals,&#8221; the group stated.<\/p>\n<p>Group captain Adam Deng told <em>The Fix<\/em> via email that though the full spring speaker list is \u201csecret,\u201d the group \u201cwill proceed as [it] did in the fall\u2014perhaps not so frequently as a speaker every week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will maintain our high engagement with the MIT community, speakers, and onlookers,\u201d he said. \u201cFor spring speakers, we prioritize MIT alumni and notable public figures, especially those with multidisciplinary ventures or unique\/unusual discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deng also wrote of the impact the group has made on campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hear us discussed at lunch conversations, in club activities, and certainly in school news and email, in which we are variously praised for our bravery and detested for our platforming non-establishment ideas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most important student feedback is the encouragement we have received from students who share dissenting views, of which there are surprisingly many,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are proving that the mob is not at all omnipotent, and it only takes a few dedicated musketeers to restore MIT\u2019s spirit of free, fearless discovery,\u201d Deng said.<\/p>\n<p>The group&#8217;s website states the group \u201cwill lead MIT out of the darkness of Prof. Dorian Abbot\u2019s cancellation in 2021.\u201d MIT had invited Abbot, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, to lecture in 2021, only to cancel his invitation over concerns about his views on affirmative action, as <em>The Fix<\/em> previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/mit-cancels-science-lecture-by-professor-a-dei-critic-after-cancel-culture-campaign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to a 2022 MIT faculty governance <a href=\"https:\/\/facultygovernance.mit.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/20220901_Final_Report_of_the_Ad_Hoc_Working_Group_on_Free_Expression.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>, 84 percent of students surveyed said they felt they could not \u201cexpress [their] opinion on a subject because of how students, a professor, or the administration would respond.\u201d In addition, conservative students were four times more likely to report this feeling than their liberal peers.<\/p>\n<p>Staff at MIT echoed concerns over self-censorship, with many identifying the \u201corganizational power structure\u201d as a major restriction on their freedom of expression, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Fix<\/em> also reached out to MIT\u2019s department head of political science, David Singer; the president of MIT\u2019s Undergraduate Association, Andre Hamelberg; and a representative of MIT\u2019s Institute Community &amp; Equity Office twice over the past week. None responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/using-trans-persons-birth-name-is-violent-act-mit-module\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Using trans person\u2019s birth name is \u2018violent act\u2019: MIT module<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: Adam Deng<\/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>&#8216;We are proving that the mob is not at all omnipotent,&#8217; group leader said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":139644,"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":[50004,52368,166,52363,52367,42879,52361,52365,12214,631,52360,52369,33976,52366,52364,52359,52362,3763],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/freespeech72.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Oh4L-Ake","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139638"}],"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\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139638"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139781,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139638\/revisions\/139781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}