No sooner had Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned than the pressure shifted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, but the cell biologist may be the exception that proves the rule.
Ms. Kornbluth is the last woman standing of the three university presidents who gave disastrous testimony at a Dec. 5 House hearing on campus antisemitism. Within days, an academic reckoning had begun with the resignation of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill.
“TWO DOWN,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, New York Republican, declared shortly after Ms. Gay’s Jan. 2 resignation.
A week later, however, Ms. Kornbluth doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
The MIT Corp. has stood behind her despite some flare-ups on campus, including a donor revolt led by Jewish alumni and the abrupt resignation of a highly regarded computer scientist over antisemitism.
“During a time when the Jewish and Israeli students, staff and faculty were particularly vulnerable, instead of offering the support they needed, the broader MIT community exhibited open hostility towards them,” lecturer Mauricio Karchmer said in a Jan. 3 statement. “Like many other college campuses nationwide, the institute clearly failed this test.”
He didn’t call for Ms. Kornbluth’s resignation, however.
Neither has the Jewish Alumni Alliance, which urged MIT graduates to participate in the “$1 Pledge.” That campaign asked alumni, who typically donate thousands of dollars per year or more, to give just $1 annually until the university takes “constructive action” against rising antisemitism on campus.
Unlike the other presidents, Ms. Kornbluth has managed to avoid taking the fall for a campus environment that has allowed anti-Israel protests and pro-Hamas sentiment to flourish.
It doesn’t hurt that she is Jewish and regarded as a longtime supporter of the Jewish community, including the campus group Hillel. She also has the backing of the MIT Alumni Association board of directors and dozens of department heads, as shown in letters on the MIT website.
Last week, Ms. Kornbluth issued a campuswide memo promising to tighten campus discipline.
“In practice, it’s clear that we need a better sense of how to navigate the principles of freedom of expression, which we must protect, and the need to guard against harassment, bullying, intimidation and discrimination — policy violations that must be subject to discipline,” she said.
It took more than their statements at the House hearing to sink Ms. Gay and Ms. Magill. All three presidents testified that whether calling for the “genocide of Jews” violated conduct codes would depend on the context.
Ms. Magill was facing a donor revolt for UPenn’s decision to host the Palestine Writes Literary Festival. The September event featured speakers decried as antisemites.
Ms. Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, may well have survived the hearing but for a simultaneous academic misconduct scandal. She was accused of nearly 50 instances of plagiarism, including near-verbatim paraphrasing, for which students could be suspended or expelled under Harvard’s academic misconduct policy.
Ms. Kornbluth doesn’t have another apparent strike against her. In fact, the question of whether she should stay or go may soon be eclipsed by the tale of revenge that spilled onto the public stage last weekend involving billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and MIT Corp. Chairman Mark Gorenberg.
Mr. Ackman, a Harvard graduate credited with helping usher out Ms. Gay, announced that he would use AI to conduct “plagiarism reviews” of the MIT board, administration and faculty in retaliation for a plagiarism story last week in Business Insider targeting his wife, former MIT professor Neri Oxman.
Why blame MIT?
Mr. Ackman said Saturday that he has “new information that strongly suggests” the source of the Business Insider story is affiliated with MIT.
Last night, no one at @MIT had a good night’s sleep.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 7, 2024
Yesterday evening, shortly after I posted that we were launching a plagiarism review of all current MIT faculty, President Kornbluth, members of MIT’s administration, and its board, I am sure that an audible collective gasp…
Why would MIT single out Mr. Ackman?
Last month, he accused MIT of possible IRS violations. He noted that MIT’s donor-advised fund has contributed nearly $2 million to Parity.org, a nonprofit promoting “diversity in leadership” run by Mr. Gorenberg’s wife, Cathrin Stickney.
In a Monday statement, MIT said its leaders “remain focused on ensuring the vital work of the people of MIT continues. It said the work is essential to the nation’s security, prosperity and quality of life.”
“Like other donors, Mr. Gorenberg created a Donor Advised Fund at MIT for distribution of his philanthropic gifts to MIT and other approved non-profits,” MIT said in a statement to The Washington Times. “As required by law, these DAF fund distributions were reported on MIT’s 990 filings.”
Ms. Stickney is Parity.Org’s only full-time employee, and Mr. Gorenberg is the treasurer. Neither receives any compensation, according to the nonprofit’s 2021 Form 990, but Mr. Ackman said the donor-advised fund offers tax benefits.
“The MIT DAF was used as a conduit for Chairman Gorenberg to make a donation to his wife’s charity that he could not have made directly,” Mr. Ackman said on X. “This enabled him to receive twice as large a tax deduction, 60% vs. 30%, and to shelter a greater percentage of his adjusted gross income, up to 50% of AGI versus 30%.”
Ms. Oxman apologized after Business Insider reported that she neglected to place quotation marks around four paragraphs of her 330-page Ph.D. thesis at MIT, which she had completed in 2010.
The publication was hit with a backlash, accused of targeting her as payback for her husband’s advocacy.
Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate that owns Business Insider, said in a Monday statement that it would look into the “motivation” for the story about Ms. Oxman.
“While the facts of the reports have not been disputed, over the past few days questions have been raised about the motivation and the process leading up to the reporting — questions that we take very seriously,” Axel Springer said in an email to The Times.
“Our media brands operate independently, however all Axel Springer publications are committed to journalism that meets rigorous editorial standards and processes,” the statement said. “BI is going to take a couple of days to review its processes around these stories to ensure that its standards as well as journalistic values have been upheld. We will be transparent with our conclusions.”
Although the Ackman saga doesn’t necessarily reflect well on MIT, it has diverted attention away from Ms. Kornbluth.
Talia Khan, a Jewish graduate student at MIT, said combating antisemitism should encompass the entire university, including the board and the DEI infrastructure, not just the president’s office.
“I think what we really need to focus on here is the fact that Jewish students are not being treated fairly, they’re being discriminated against, they’re being harassed on campuses,” she said Friday on “Fox and Friends.” “We need to make sure we’re not just focused on taking away these presidents because these problems at all these universities, including MIT, run so much deeper.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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