Weekly Briefing: MIT's president hangs on, for now

Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the only president still standing after December's House hearing on antisemitism. [Weekly Briefing Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. MIT’s president holds on to her post. Sally Kornbluth (above) is still standing. Since Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard University last week, calls for Kornbluth to step down as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have gotten louder. Kornbluth is the last of the three university leaders — all women — who testified at the December [congressional hearing]( on campus antisemitism. The presidents were criticized for their responses to questions, [most notably]( from Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, on whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people violated the institutions’ codes of conduct. Days after the hearing, M. Elizabeth Magill [stepped down]( as president of the University of Pennsylvania. Gay [resigned]( this month after plagiarism accusations added to the hearing’s blowback. Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who pushed for Gay and Magill to resign, [posted on X]( “Et tu Sally?” shortly after The Harvard Crimson broke the news of Gay’s resignation. He later said that he planned to conduct a full review of whether Kornbluth too had plagiarized. That assertion came one day after his wife, Neri Oxman, [apologized for plagiarism]( in her 2010 MIT dissertation. Where do MIT’s leaders stand? Two days after the fateful December hearing, the executive committee of the MIT Corporation — the university’s board of trustees — released a statement [supporting Kornbluth](. University [department heads and faculty leaders]( issued a similar statement. Last week an MIT spokeswoman said the administration “continues to underscore” letters from those campus groups. The MIT Corporation did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for comment. On January 3 — the day after Gay resigned — Kornbluth announced [a series of changes]( at the university, including reviewing MIT’s process for handling student-misconduct complaints, creating a Committee on Academic Freedom and Campus Expression, and adding questions focused on antisemitism and Islamophobia to its campus-climate survey. What about critics? For some faculty members and alumni, those proposed changes weren’t enough. Some have been pressing Kornbluth to resign since the December hearing. A petition calling for her resignation, which anyone can sign, has drawn more than [3,000 signatures](. Edward Cotler, a 2002 MIT graduate who started the petition, said he lacks faith in how the campus is run. He also said Kornbluth’s leadership doesn’t make Jewish students feel welcome. Another group, the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance, which formed in November, after [pro-Palestine protests on campus]( has pressured MIT but not directly called for the president’s resignation. After the hearing, the group criticized Kornbluth, who is Jewish, for not apologizing for her testimony, as both Magill and Gay had done. The alliance also asked administrators, among other things, to discipline student protesters more harshly and to say that calls for violence against civilians are grounds for expulsion. The alliance is suggesting that alumni cut donations to $1 a year until the “administration takes constructive action to address the growing antisemitism and intolerance of Jewish presence on campus.” [Read our Maggie Hicks’s full story here](. ADVERTISEMENT NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Lagniappe - Read. Why would a novelist and corporate writer quit her day job to [become a crossing guard]( Here’s the answer. (Slate) - Listen. [This week’s episode]( of The Ezra Klein Show is about cultural and aesthetic taste: what it means, how to acquire it, and why there’s a dearth of it lately. (The New York Times) - Look. This week I saw [the work]( of Eileen Agar, the Argentine-British painter and photographer often associated with Surrealism, for the first time. I’ve been thinking about her paintings all week. Even if you’re familiar with her work, I encourage you to take a look. (Christie’s) —Fernanda SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. Chronicle Top Reads 'A NEW SORT OF PROXY WAR' [How Harvard Tried to Save Its President]( By Emma Pettit [STORY IMAGE]( When the university learned of alleged plagiarism by Claudine Gay, it scrambled to stop the scandal before it began. 'WE HAVE TO EVOLVE' [Wisconsin’s Warning for Higher Ed]( By Erin Gretzinger [STORY IMAGE]( Leaders have put off making tough decisions about their public colleges for decades. The options have only grown more difficult. THE REVIEW | OPINION [Reviving Critical Community on Campus]( By Paul Brest [STORY IMAGE]( How to make campus culture welcoming, but still argumentative. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Research Driven University - The Chronicle Store]( [The Research Driven University]( Research universities are the $90-billion heart of America’s R&D operation. [Order this report today]( to explore the scope of the American academic-research enterprise and how institutions can contribute to tomorrow’s revolutionary innovations. 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