MIT discontinues Institute Community and Equity Office after review process
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has 'sunset' its Institute Community and Equity Office after an extensive review.
An MIT spokesperson stressed to Campus Reform that the move follows a 'comprehensive assessment' dating back to January of last year.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has “sunset” its Institute Community and Equity Office after an extensive review.
An MIT spokesperson stressed to Campus Reform that the move follows a “comprehensive assessment” dating back to January of last year. “[T]his process began nearly 18 months ago and follows from an assessment done throughout that period and recently completed by a group of senior faculty and staff,” the official said.
[RELATED: Medical school accreditor halts DEI program evaluations]
President Sally Kornbluth released the update in a letter titled, “How we support our community” on May 22.
According to the letter, the primary reason for the closure is to have university programs arise from bottom-up initiatives, instead of top-down institutional directives.
“At a high level, the working group found real appreciation for the programs administered by the Institute Community and Equity Office (ICEO) and reported that our community remains deeply committed to the pursuit of inclusive excellence,” the letter says. “But the working group also reported a broad desire to rethink how this work is done in practice; a common refrain, matching what I’d heard myself, was that community is best built locally rather than top down.”
Regardless, “MIT is deeply committed to fostering a campus environment that is free of discrimination and harassment.”
Many of the office’s programs are being transferred to other departments. Kornbluth’s letter also notes that, “Core programs will continue, but we will wind down the central ICEO.”
The office’s website is now behind a university login page. A record of the formerly-public page can be seen on the Wayback Machine, an internet archive.
MIT’s decision to sunset the Institute Community and Equity Office marks the latest move away from institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). As Campus Reform reported last year, the school eliminated requirements for diversity statements on faculty applications.
“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to MIT, and to make sure they thrive once here,” Kornbluth said at the time. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”
