On December 21, 2022, the MIT Faculty adopted a Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. Its first paragraph concludes,

With a tradition of celebrating provocative thinking, controversial views, and nonconformity, MIT unequivocally endorses the principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom.

The promotion and defense of these principles is the purpose of the recently-founded MIT Council on Academic Freedom, of which we are the founding co-presidents. MITCAF membership is open to any faculty member (including lecturers and emeriti) who supports its mission. We invite you to join us.

MITCAF’s members agree on the following principles (all quotations are from the 2022 Faculty Statement):

Intellectual Diversity. “We cannot have a truly free community of expression if some perspectives can be heard and others cannot. Learning from a diversity of viewpoints, and from the deliberation, debate, and dissent that accompany them, is an essential ingredient of academic excellence.”

Academic Freedom & Open Inquiry. “Free expression is enhanced by the doctrine of academic freedom, which protects both intramural and extramural expression without institutional censorship or discipline. Academic freedom promotes scholarly rigor and the testing of ideas by protecting research, publication, and teaching from interference.”

Free Expression & Civil Discourse. “We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. At the same time, MIT deeply values civility, mutual respect, and uninhibited, wide-open debate.”

The Council provides a forum for the discussion, interpretation, and encouragement of Academic Freedom. It also provides a watchful eye to guard against encroachments on its principles, especially when events on campus and beyond have put them under renewed stress.

MITCAF is a non-partisan organization. While agreeing on the above principles, its members have a diversity of views; this includes disagreement on the precise bounds of free expression and academic freedom.

MITCAF is independent of the MIT administration. We applaud the administration’s endorsement of the Faculty Free Expression Statement, while remaining aware that its policies and actions may infringe those freedoms; we will take note if they do. MITCAF is also independent of other organizations devoted, in whole or part, to free expression or academic freedom. We have an interest in what opinions such organizations express and what actions they take, and we are eager to work for common purpose when possible, but we are not bound by them.

MITCAF’s founding members came together out of the conviction that a university, to thrive, must protect freedom of expression and academic freedom. If you’d like to join us, email mitcaf@mit.edu. For more information, visit mitcaf.mit.edu.

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