The Massachusetts Institute of Technology won’t suspend students who violently disrupted classes in pro-Hamas protests, because that might affect their immigration status.
But it apparently will take action against students who refer to transgender people by their birth name. A professor who calls a person by their birth name and not their new chosen name commits a “violent act,” according to an LGBT training administered by MIT.
The “LGBTQ 101+” training is one of three sexual harassment modules offered to faculty, staff, and graduate students at the private university in Cambridge. The Daily Wire reported on the content of the training module:
One portion discusses and defines the concept of “deadnaming,” using the birth and often legal name of an individual who identifies as transgender and who has taken on a new name. The training defines it as “the act of referring to a transgender or nonbinary person by a name they used prior to transitioning.” It even goes on to say “deadnaming is invalidating and may trigger a trauma response” and warns against “misgendering.”
Calling someone by their birth name, “brings all of their negative life experience with that name to the surface … it is considered a violent act.”
The training repeats typical LGBTQ talking points, such as that “gender” and “sex” are different and that “gender is a spectrum.”
But the term “gender” was synonymous with the term “sex.” It was used to avoid saying “sex” in conversation, because of the dual meaning of the word “sex” to refer to both reproduction and one’s sex, according to Professor John Grabowski.
The Daily Wire reported:
Staff and faculty are also instructed to make their workplaces more “affirming” by using certain terms and avoiding others. “Provide space regularly in your lab/department/office/classrooms to share their pronouns. Avoid using binary gendered language … instead use ‘they’ and ‘people’ as gender neutral terms,” the training says.
“Are you a visible, dependable ally?” the training asks. “What have you done recently, or what are you planning on doing, that can contribute to a feeling of LGBTQ+ belonging at MIT?”
A portion titled “let’s talk about allyship” assures trainees that “there are many different forms of allyship” before explaining “queer cisgender people can be an ally to trans and non-binary individuals” and “white queer and heterosexual individuals can be an ally to queer and trans people of color.
Earlier this month, some Jewish and Israeli students were prevented from attending classes at MIT by a blockade carried out by pro-Hamas/anti-Israel students. But MIT did not take any meaningful action against the pro-Hamas students who did this, even though the blockade prevented students from receiving the education they pay $60,000 a year for, and even though this likely created a hostile environment for Jewish students in violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, and even though this violated MIT’s own stated policies.
MIT has student conduct policies that forbid interference with classes. Its policies also forbid creating a hostile environment, based on religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin. Yet failed to enforce those same policies against disruptive conduct by pro-Hamas leftists that created a hostile environment for Jews in violation of state law. It is happy to enforce those policies in favor of other minority groups — MIT has punished racist or sexual speech that offended blacks or feminists, labeling it as creating a hostile environment, even if civil liberties groups like FIRE view such speech as constitutionally protected. But it did nothing meaningful about the disruption by pro-Hamas groups.
Instead, it refused to suspend them academically, merely suspending their participation in non-academic activities, because it feared that suspending or expelling them would cost them their visas. Fox News reported:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was blasted this week after its administrators acknowledged the university stopped short of expelling anti-Israel student protesters because of “visa issues.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a statement Nov. 9 that the school would merely suspend students who participated in the disruptive protest from non-academic campus activities to avoid “collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues.” One day earlier, the Coalition Against Apartheid, a pro-Palestinian student group, conducted a large protest that Kornbluth confirmed defied MIT policies governing student actions.
“In late morning, the face-to-face confrontation between the protesters and counterprotesters intensified,” Kornbluth said. “We had serious concerns that it could lead to violence. To prevent further escalation and protect the physical safety of everyone present – including both student protesters and passers-by in our busiest lobby — the administration felt it was essential to take action.”
“The students will remain enrolled at MIT and will be able to attend academic classes and labs,” she continued, noting some of the protesters’ “visa issues.” “We will refer this interim action to the Ad Hoc Complaint Response Team, which includes the chair of the Committee on Discipline, for final adjudication.”
MIT was quickly criticized for the decision because, prior to the disruptive protest, the school threatened to expel any students who acted in violation of its guidance and policies regarding such actions. Kornbluth’s statement, they argued, appeared to contradict that previous promise.
“So MIT was going to suspend these students for clearly and deliberately violating the rules after repeated warnings, but decided not to because it could lead to their visas being revoked,” A.G. Hamilton, a conservative commentator and author, wrote on X. “It seems that’s something the students should have considered beforehand…”
“‘Visa issues’ are not only a reason to suspend these pro-Hamas foreigners from school, but also to deport them immediately,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., added in a post of his own.
