Open Letter: The MIT College of Computing Must Address Systemic Racism

If you are an individual affiliated with MIT or the Greater Boston Area and would like to add your name to this letter, follow this link: Sign the open letter (individuals).

If you are an organization and would like to add your name to this letter, follow this link: Sign the open letter (organizations).

UPDATE: The MIT College of Computing published a statement regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion after the publication of our open letter. Their private response to us as of 2020 June 29 has consisted only and exclusively of a verbatim copy of the statement published on their website.

2020 June 15

To the MIT College of Computing Leadership,

In the wake of the extrajudicial murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks a global conversation has erupted around police violence, anti-blackness, and anti-racism. Protests have taken place in over 700 cities and towns across the United States demanding justice for victims of police violence and demanding deep systemic change. At the time of writing, at least 21 people have been killed in these protests and over 11,000 people have been jailed.

As we enter the fourth week of mass protests, the College of Computing has failed to release any kind of public statement disavowing white supremacy, systemic racism, police violence and anti-blackness. The College of Computing has failed to pledge any action to address these issues in the development of the college. The preliminary action plan presented last year by the College’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) initiative aims to “facilitate the development of responsible ‘habits of mind and action’ for those who create and deploy computing technologies” but does not sufficiently acknowledge and address the severity of systemic racism and anti-blackness.

The College’s failure is unacceptable, and cast into sharp relief by the historic scale of this moment. Silence is violence.

A statement by the College of Computing is especially pertinent as more and more police agencies deploy facial recognition technology to suppress activists, to incorporate predictive policing to over-police Black neighborhoods, to develop “smart prisons” to excessively monitor the incarcerated, to use biased machine learning to set bail, and much more. Now more than ever we need effective leadership in the technological arena to impose hard stances on the use of computation for propagating systemic injustices.

1) We, the undersigned members of the MIT and Greater Boston area community, demand the following short term actions in response to the current protests:

• The College of Computing must make a public statement on the College’s website condemning the police murder of George Floyd and condemning police brutality in the United States.
• The College of Computing SERC must develop an updated action plan that explicitly addresses the legacy of anti-blackness and the relationship between technology and policing. The College must provide regular updates on the progress of implementing this action plan as well as forums for community members to provide feedback.
• The College of Computing must break all ties with companies that sell technology to police and ICE, including:

Amazon: For continuing to plan to sell facial recognition and other oppressive surveillance software to police departments (The current one-year moratorium on facial recognition alone is not enough), and for providing Amazon Web Services to ICE.

Palantir: For providing surveillance software to ICE, and for developing and selling predictive policing software.

• End any existing research or business contracts with police departments and commit to never instantiating such contracts in the future.

2) We demand the following long term commitments as the College of Computing is further developed:

• The College of Computing must develop hiring practices that prioritize hiring people of color, especially Black professors, research scientists, and fellows.
• The College of Computing must meet or exceed in graduate and undergraduate admissions the national percentage of Black and African American people. At present, only 6% of undergraduates and 2% of graduate students in the School of Engineering are Black or African American, compared to 12% of the American population.
• The College of Computing must acknowledge and implement the similar 2015 and 2020 recommendations made by the MIT Black Graduate Student Association. MIT cannot delay listening to the voices of its own students as well as the community at large on addressing its involvement in systemic racism any longer.

Sincerely,

Movement for Anti-Oppressive Computing Practices (MACPrac)
Data + Feminism Lab, MIT
MIT Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Board
Algorithmic Justice League
MIT Students Against War
Sholei Croom, BCS, MACPrac
P M Krafft, PhD EECS 2017, MACPrac
Edward Burnell, MIT PhD Student, MACPrac
Nathalie Fernandez, BCS, MACPrac
Sally Haslanger, Professor, MIT
Tan Zhi-Xuan, PhD Student, EECS (2024)
Rodrigo Ochigame, HASTS (2016)
Elena Sobrino, MIT HASTS
Alona Bach, HASTS (PhD student)
Richard Fadok, HASTS (2013)
Caroline White-Nockleby, MIT HASTS
Priya Pillai, EECS/Biology (2019 BS, 2020 MEng)
Timothy Loh, HASTS (2018)
Babak Hemmatian, Brown University, Stand Up for Graduate Student Employees, Brown War Watch
Gabrielle Robbins, History/Anthro/STS (HASTS, 2017), MIT COVID Relief
Ethan Baker, Biology (2017)
Rahul Jayaraman, Physics (2019)
Kara Rodby, ChemE (2017)
Maddie Dery, Chemical Engineering (2017)
Thejas Wesley, ChemE (2017), MIT ChemE Graduate Student Advisory Board
Mary Joens, ChemE, Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Board
Kelsey Allen, BCS (2020)
Luísa Reis-Castro, HASTS, MIT
Regina Ebo, BCS
Marlo Johnson, MIT
Madeline Pelz, BCS (Graduate Student)
Felix Sosa / Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines
Jessica Hamrick, EECS (2012), DeepMind
Brianna Lax, Chemical Engineering (2018), ChemE GSAB
Christopher J. Bates, Psychology, Harvard
Dr Charley Wu, Harvard
Cathy Wang, TPP (2021)
Enjoli Hall, Urban Studies and Planning (2019)
Skylar Miklus, Dartmouth ‘22
Kindle Williams, Graduate Student (Chemical Engineering)
Bernhard Egger MIT BCS
Dr. Claire Duvallet, MIT Biological Engineering
Amir A. Soltani, BCS, RA
Tan Zhi Xuan, EECS (2024)
Visiting Grad Student, EECS
Mariel García-Montes, HASTS (2019)
Karen Hao, ME (2015), MIT Technology Review
Paul W. Quimby, EECS (2012, 2013)
Cindy Kao MAS (2018 PhD)
Patricia-Maria Weinmann
Melody Chapin, PhD Candidate in Music, Brown University, SUGSE
A. Nicole Dusang, PhD ECE, Brown University
Milo Phillipis Brown, Postdoc, MIT Philosophy
Alexander Quinn, ChemE (2019)
MH Tessler, Postdoctoral Fellow, MIT BCS
Russell Glynn, TPP (2021)
Alex Higuera, Software Consultant, MIT Media Lab
Lawrence Barriner II, DUSP (2014)
Mika Braginsky, BCS
Catherine Wong, BCS, MIT
Noga Zaslavsky, MIT BCS
Alex Lew, EECS (2018)
Corban Swain, MIT Graduate Student
Chelsea Onyeador, MIT AeroAstro, MIT Black Graduate Student Association Co-President
Jordan Harrod, MIT HST PhD Student
Randi Williams, MAS (2016)
Adis Ojeda, EECS (2022)
Ashar Farooq, EECS(2023)
Elizabeth Borneman, CMS, 2020
Peter Godart, MechE, PhD Candidate
Aditi Gupta, HST (PhD Candidate)
Catherine D’Ignazio, Assistant Professor of Urban Science & Planning, MIT
Sasha Costanza-Chock, Associate Professor, CMS/W
Jonah Ko, MIT MechE (2016)
Eddie Kay, EECS (2010)
Lisa Parks, Professor, MIT
Helen Elaine Lee, MIT Professor
Bianca Lepe, PhD Student, BE (2018)
Ethan Nevidomsky, EECS/CMS (2022)
Edmund Bertschinger, MIT Physics and WGS
Mehitabel Glenhaber, MIT STS alum (2019)
Casey Hong, EECS (2018), TPP (2022)
Faye Duxovni, B.S./M.Eng EECS 2018, SIPB
Professor Jeff Ravel, MIT History Section
Kristina Kim, MechE (2017)
Joy Buolamwini
Ethan Zuckerman, Center for Civic Media, MIT
Divakar S. Mithal BCS (2001)
Professor Wesley L. Harris/Aeronautics and Astronautics
Micah Smith, PhD Student, EECS, LIDS
Ian Condry, Professor, Comparative Media Studes / Writing, MIT
Shohini Stout, DUSP (2021)
EECS PhD student (2023), MIT SB ’17, SM ‘19
Joaquin Giraldo-Laguna, Mechanical Engineering (2020)
Radius at MIT
JS Tan, MAS 2022
stratton coffman, Architecture, MIT
Kayla Vodehnal, BE (2020), MIT Students Against War
Maedeh Marzoughi, MIT BCS (2019)
Grace Bryant, DUSP & EECS (2021)
Hannah Gaudet, Math (2019)
Brian Gilligan, MechE Alum, SB ’17, SM ‘19
Matt Bowers, MIT EECS
Patrick Moran, Physics (G)
David Rothauser
Mathieu Medina, ChemE (2021)
Kathryn Tso, DMSE
Judy Wang, MIT DMSE (2019)
Nancy Valladares, SMACT (2020), MIT
Jeffrey Shen (2023)
Annie Liu, CS (2023)
Maya Roy, Economics & EECS (2020)
Isadora Dannin, Architecture (2017)
Ryan Aasen, MIT Architecture (2020)
Irura Nyiha, (2020)
Ece Turnator, MIT LIBRARIES
Matt Hodel, Physics graduate student (SB 2017), MIT Students Against War
Samuel Nitz, EECS/Biology (2021), MIT
Jordan Isler, 16 & 17 (2019), MIT Students Against War
Berenice Estrada,MIT Media Lab
Josefina Buschmann, MIT alumna (CMS ’19)
João Loula
Julian Hernandez, 6–3 undergrad rising senior
Gianna Reza-Ortega, SB ChemE + Biology (2020)
Charles Xu, Physics (2015)