MIT's Bait & Switch Presidents

David Koch installed Susan Hockfield as the president of MIT in 2004, and Charles Koch installed Sally Kornbluth in 2023. Blocking action on methane emissions, partnering with Russian weapon manufacturers to develop Russian shale, setting up Jeffrey Epstein at the Media Lab to sponsor fraudulent research, and now destroying diversity at an elite American institution — these are the achievements that Koch Industries has achieved at MIT, with more in store.

MIT is a failed institution, a for-profit corporation, and a threat to us all.

Susan Hockfield, the first "bait n' switch" president

If the MIT community had known that Yale provost Susan Hockfield was going to form a secret agreement with MIT Corporation Member David Koch, and turn her back on her predecessor, Charles Vest, they would never, ever, not in a million years, have allowed Susan Hockfield anywhere near the president's office.

Instead, she was hailed was MIT's first woman president.

Just six years later Susan Hockfield resigned without explanation, handing power back to the person who had appointed her, David Koch. His first move was to annul the MIT Environmental Initiative, which 18 senior MIT faculty had spent the previous four years developing, his second move was to appoint a puppet president to lie to the MIT community about what John Deutch and MIT were doing in Russia, and finally, when his purge and puppet were in place, he rewrote MIT's bylaws and transferred all power at MIT into his own hands.

From "MIT: Where Now?" (MIT Faculty Newsletter, Jan/Feb 2020):

At the December 2012 quarterly meeting of the Corporation, a quiet revolution in MIT governance took place. Unnoticed by nearly all faculty, this changed the dynamic balance that had previously existed between the Executive Committee and MIT’s senior leadership...All these changes add up to a new relationship between the university and the Corporation.

The ground work for this move as laid throughout 2011. In October 2011, Koch replaced Hockfield's Executive Vice President and Treasurer with his own, Israel Ruiz (MIT News, Oct 14, 2011), then transferred virtually all power at MIT into his hands.

Again, from "MIT: Where Now?":

Our interviewees were concerned about the degree to which MIT, though legally a non-profit, is being conceptualized as a business.

Again and again and again, MIT faculty see what is happening, but their lack of curiosity prevents them from understanding why it is happening, or what it means.

Sally Kornbluth, MIT's second bait n'switch president

Again, if the MIT community had known that their new president, Duke Provost Sally Kornbluth, would annul —?without their input, their vote, their voice — one of MIT's most important achievements, they would never have allowed her anywhere near the president's office.

Every news article about this tragedy quotes MIT's press release, that this decision was made

"with the support of the Provost, Chancellor, and all six academic deans”.

Can you imagine any university president needing to include so much validation in an announcement like this? This is the coerced support that one expects from Russia.

MIT is a failed institution, a for-profit corporation, and a threat to us all.