The power of inspiration
I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, the youngest of four brothers: Elias, Benjamin, Isaac, and me. When Elias was a baby, my parents fled from Eastern Europe in the late 1930s, just before World War II.
President Reif responds to letter on Saudi Arabia
President Reif will formally respond to students' concerns regarding Saudi Arabia after consulting faculty of MIT's international activities.
Financial support of MIT is unethical
The argument that MIT cannot cease working with the nation of Saudi Arabia without punishing its worthy scholars is a cynical (and unproven) smokescreen that serves to obscure a much less patatable idea — that state-sanctioned murder to silence a journalist can be rationalized as a minor transgression, so as not to damage a lucrative relationship.
In defense of President Reif
President Reif’s positions on so many other decisions directly affecting students have demonstrated a degree of integrity and political courage that I have found both encouraging and increasingly rare among our leaders today.
A letter to President Reif and Provost Schmidt regarding Epstein
Taking Epstein’s money suggested a willingness to turn a blind eye to the impact of his crimes, which included procuring the prostitution of a minor. The fact that this situation was even thinkable at MIT is profoundly disturbing and is symptomatic of broader, more structural problems involving gender and race in MIT’s culture. It is time for fundamental change.