School Spotlight

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Type: Private
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Speech Code Rating

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been given the speech code rating Yellow. Yellow light colleges and universities are those institutions with at least one ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application. Read more

Due Process Rating

Non-Sexual Misconduct

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F

Sexual Misconduct

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F

Title IX

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C

Campus Climate

Overall Ranking

out of 154 colleges surveyed Read more
76

  • MITNet Rules of Use

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Internet Usage Policies
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    Any use that might contribute to the creation of a hostile academic or work environment is prohibited … Read More

  • MIT Policies & Procedures: 9.4 Policy on Harassment

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    Harassment is defined as unwelcome conduct of a verbal, nonverbal or physical nature that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a work or academic environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile or abusive and that adversely affects an individual’s educational, work, or living envir... Read More

  • Mind and Hand Book: Policies Regarding Student Behavior- II (24). Sexual Misconduct

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    Sexual Harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, such as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature, when: … The conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive that a reasonable person would consider it intimidating, hostile,... Read More

  • Mind and Hand Book: Policies Regarding Student Behavior- II (9) Freedom of Expression

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Policies on Tolerance, Respect, and Civility
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    Freedom of expression is essential to the mission of a university. So is freedom from unreasonable and disruptive offense. Members of this educational community are encouraged to avoid putting these essential elements of our university to a balancing test. Read More

  • MIT Policies & Procedures: 11.1 Protection of Personal Privacy

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    MIT is committed to protecting the personal privacy of members of the MIT community. The mutual trust and freedom of thought and expression essential to a university rest on a confidence that privacy will be respected. Read More

  • MIT Policies & Procedures: 1.1 Mission and Objectives

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    The Institute seeks through research and reflection to extend the boundaries of knowledge and the horizons of the human intellect. In so doing, it aims to create an atmosphere of intellectual excitement, a climate of inquiry and innovation in which each student develops a consuming interest in understanding for its ... Read More

  • MIT Policies & Procedures: 9.4 Policy on Harassment: Title IX Sexual Harassment

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: September 8, 2021

    Title IX Sexual Harassment means: Conduct on the basis of sex that satisfies one or more of the following: … Unwelcome conduct determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to MIT’s education program or activity; … Read More

Policies are rated on their inclusion of 10 due process safeguards. Each policy may receive 2 points for fully including that safeguard, 1 point for partial inclusion, and 0 points for no meaningful inclusion. Most, but not all, institutions have separate policies for sexual misconduct and all other misconduct. See FIRE’s Spotlight on Due Process report for more information.

Grades

Non-Sexual Misconduct

F
4/20
  • Meaningful presumption of innocence
  • Timely and adequate written notice
  • Time to prepare with evidence
  • Impartial fact-finders
  • Meaningful hearing process
  • Right to present to fact-finder
  • Right to meaningful cross-ex
  • Active participation of advisor
  • Meaningful right to appeal
  • Unanimity or clear and convincing evidence

Sexual Misconduct

F
2/20
  • Meaningful presumption of innocence
  • Timely and adequate written notice
  • Time to prepare with evidence
  • Impartial fact-finders
  • Meaningful hearing process
  • Right to present to fact-finder
  • Right to meaningful cross-ex
  • Active participation of advisor
  • Meaningful right to appeal
  • Unanimity or clear and convincing evidence

Title IX

C
11/20
  • Meaningful presumption of innocence
  • Timely and adequate written notice
  • Time to prepare with evidence
  • Impartial fact-finders
  • Meaningful hearing process
  • Right to present to fact-finder
  • Right to meaningful cross-ex
  • Active participation of advisor
  • Meaningful right to appeal
  • Unanimity or clear and convincing evidence

FIRE surveyed roughly 37,000 students at 154 colleges and universities about the climate for free speech at their institutions. In 2021, FIRE released rankings of those schools, based on a number of factors, including openness, tolerance, self-expression, administrative support for free speech, and campus policies, scoring overall speech climate on a scale from 0-100. See the full report on FIRE’s 2021 College Free Speech Rankings for more information.

 

Rankings / out of 154 colleges surveyed
Overall Ranking 76
Ideological Diversity 102

Overall / out of a top score of 100
Overall Score 59.54
Openness 10.36
Tolerance (Liberals) 10.67
Tolerance (Conservatives) 8.03
Administrative Support 5.61
Comfort 14.95
Disruptive Conduct 9.92
Speech Code YELLOW

  • What does MIT stand for? Faculty, alumni want answers.

    December 1, 2021

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology prides itself as a hub of brilliant minds and innovation. Last year, MIT researchers filed 439 patents, and through its intellectual property enabled the creation of 25 companies. The institute is affiliated with 98 Nobel Prize laureates, 11 of whom are current faculty. But in recent years, MIT faculty and… Read more

  • MIT community rallies behind Chicago Statement after Dorian Abbot disinvitation

    November 10, 2021

    It was only about a month ago that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made headlines for disinviting University of Chicago geophysics professor Dorian Abbot from a planned lecture due to pressure from critics who questioned Abbot’s stance on campus diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Now, multiple free speech groups and a coalition of MIT community… Read more

  • The threat of campus orthodoxy has been looming. Dorian Abbot’s MIT disinvitation suggests it’s arrived.

    October 6, 2021

    For the past decade, the annual John Carlson Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has given the public an opportunity, free of charge, to hear “exciting new results in climate science” from prominent scholars in the field. Last year’s lecture, during the COVID-19 pandemic, didn’t happen. And there won’t be one this year either… Read more

  • FIRE urges 15 top colleges and universities to improve restrictive press policies

    November 12, 2020

    Over the summer, a report from the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement revealed that a majority of top colleges and universities maintain policies unfriendly to the press, including the student press. As FIRE reported at the time, UC Center fellow John K. Wilson found that these policies include requirements… Read more

  • FIRE Chairman Calls Out Northeast Colleges in Annual ‘Muzzle Awards’

    July 6, 2015

    Each summer for the past eighteen years, FIRE Co-founder and Chairman Harvey Silverglate has announced the winners of his annual “Campus Muzzle Awards”: colleges and universities in the Northeast stifling campus discourse in particularly outrageous ways. Along with myself and fellow research assistant Timothy Moore, this year, Harvey has written about incidents at Brown University,… Read more

  • MIT Grad Student Raises Concerns About Broad New Hazing Policy

    September 5, 2014

    In a guest column published in today’s edition of The Tech, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) oldest student newspaper, graduate student Brian Spatocco opens with a startling admission: “Under MIT’s recently overhauled hazing policy in the Mind and Hand Book, I am guilty of hazing students.” Is Spatocco forcing his fellow students to sizzle… Read more

  • FIRE President: ‘When the Artist’s Brush Catches the Censor’s Eye’

    November 26, 2013

    In a column published today by The Tech, an independent student newspaper at MIT, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff explores how far colleges will go to censor controversial art on campus. Titled “When the Artist’s Brush Catches the Censor’s Eye,” Greg’s column cites numerous troubling examples, including the following from MIT: MIT students recently witnessed this type of suppression… Read more

  • The State of Free Speech on Campus: MIT

    June 8, 2009

    Throughout the spring semester and into the early summer, FIRE is drawing special attention to the state of free speech at America’s top 25 national universities (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report). Today we review policies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which FIRE has given a yellow-light rating for maintaining policies… Read more