I'm an MIT student and received the letter as an email. This was the URL linked in the email for the 'online version'.
I had the URL updated to the Office of the President's page linked by a poster below as it is certainly clearer / more immediately credible. Thanks for raising the issue and thanks to that poster for the link.
Edit: and for what it's worth, I think many people here are too easily stirred into a frenzy based on astonishingly little information about this incident.
Internal email this afternoon from President Reif:
To the members of the MIT community,
Last night, The New Yorker published an article that contains deeply disturbing allegations about the engagement between individuals at the Media Lab and Jeffrey Epstein.
Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation. This morning, I asked MIT’s General Counsel to engage a prominent law firm to design and conduct this process. I expect the firm to conduct this review as swiftly as possible, and to report back to me and to the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation, MIT’s governing board.
This afternoon, Joi Ito submitted his resignation as Director of the Media Lab and as a professor and employee of the Institute.
As I described in my previous letter, the acceptance of the Epstein gifts involved a mistake of judgment. We are actively assessing how best to improve our policies, processes and procedures to fully reflect MIT’s values and prevent such mistakes in the future. Our internal review process continues, and what we learn from it will inform the path ahead.
No, if it was MIT then it would be an official communique from the Office of the President of MIT. It's MIT Technology Review, and the distinction exists for a reason.
After recent events centered on the Media Lab, I know there is a tremendous sense of pain, sadness and disappointment across campus and throughout our global community. We all want answers.
For now, I write to share two important updates.
Last Saturday, we retained the law firm Goodwin Procter to perform a thorough investigation of the facts surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s interactions with MIT. This work has already begun. We have asked the firm to explore all donations received by MIT, both those that came directly from Jeffrey Epstein and his associated foundations, and any donations that may have been received at the direction of Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, the investigation will cover who at MIT may have been aware of the donations. We have instructed Goodwin Procter to follow the evidence where it leads, and we are counting on this independent investigation to ascertain the facts. As I noted on Saturday, the firm will report back to me and to the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation, MIT’s governing board.
If you have information relevant to the investigation that you would like to share with the law firm, please email REDACTED.
To be thorough, such an investigation will take time, on the order of a month. Although media reports will continue to focus on the issues during this time, I am hopeful that the MIT community will avoid forming a final judgment before the process is complete and will respect the privacy of members of our community who may have become involved in this matter in the course of doing their jobs for MIT.
Once we have the results, and once our separate internal review of our current processes on gift acceptance is complete, we will be able to understand what happened and what needs to change.
Supporting the members of the Media Lab must now be at the center of our attention. The Provost has asked the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning to work with the Media Lab community on interim leadership for the lab and a search for the next director. The interim plan will be finalized shortly, and we will share the news as soon as possible, along with other plans to support the lab community.
I know this is a difficult and disorienting moment. But I have profound faith in the MIT community to learn from these events and find a constructive way forward.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced that it had received a $140 million pledge from a graduate of the school—with no name, and no strings attached.
An unrestricted gift of that size is rare in higher education, as donors often want a say in how their dollars are spent. Unrestricted donations can be used for things like facilities upkeep, as well as to pursue early-state scientific research.
In the past, MIT has put unrestricted funds toward online learning and Alzheimer’s research, as well as scholarships.
MIT said in a news release Wednesday that it would “invest in daring, high-risk ideas; address some of the world’s most urgent challenges; and sustain support for students, faculty, and the physical campus.”
MIT is in the second year of the public phase of its $5 billion fundraising campaign, and has already brought in $3.4 billion. So far, roughly 20% of that is unrestricted.
“No one has ever made it through life without someone else’s help. As a past recipient of MIT’s generous financial aid, I benefited tremendously from the opportunity to pursue my MIT education and am extremely appreciative of all the ways that MIT has shaped me,” the anonymous donor said in a statement shared by MIT. “I am blessed to be able to give back to the Institute so other students can experience what I did, and so that the Institute can continue to excel in groundbreaking achievements.”
The largest gift to MIT was pledged in 2000, when International Data Group founder and chairman Patrick McGovern Jr. , and his wife Lore Harp McGovern, committed $350 million over 20 years for a brain research institute.
Undergrad at MIT here, thanks for signing! Our community has been fairly troubled by this to say the least, and your outpour of support is incredibly helpful.
I know what you're saying and had similar thoughts. I suppressed my concerns thinking "some of this seems wrong but this is on mit.edu so they must have been through many checks".
Besides the linked article, this was also emailed out to the entire MIT community. And here's the prior discussion on HN when the faculty first endorsed this statement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34132152
I had the URL updated to the Office of the President's page linked by a poster below as it is certainly clearer / more immediately credible. Thanks for raising the issue and thanks to that poster for the link.
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