Standing Together Against Hate panels announced
In an email to the community, Chancellor Melissa Nobles unveiled several upcoming events this year “to build understanding and foster respectful dialogue.”
The first event is an online speaker series called Dialogue & Action in an Age of Divides, which MIT helped launch to “help participants tackle difficult issues” and “foster constructive dialogue.” The first panel, Hate and Free Speech, will be held on Jan. 29, 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
The Institute will also continue its Dialogues Across Difference: Building Community at MIT speaker series in the Spring semester, which is open to everyone in the MIT community. The series will be held at the newly opened Schwarzman College of Computing and will include four lectures, community conversations, and a reception afterwards.
The first speaker, Pamela S. Nadell, a professor and Jewish Studies Program Director at American University, will hold a lecture called Understanding Antisemitism: Enduring Hatred on Feb. 12, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Nadell testified at the Dec. 5 hearing on Capitol Hill regarding antisemitism on college campuses.
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a free speech scholar, will hold the second speaker event. The panel is titled Campus Freedom of Expression: Basic Principles and Current Controversies, and will take place Feb. 26 from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm.
Islamophobia: A Threat to All is the third panel, being held on Mar. 18, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Dalia Mogahed, the Director of Research of Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, will be the speaker. Mogahed is a Muslim studies scholar who is interested in gender and identity issues, and Islamophobia in America. Special accommodations will be made for those observing Ramadan at the time of the panel.
Murad Idris, an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, will hold the final event on Apr. 18, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm. His panel is titled: What Hinges on Anti-Palestinian Racism? Idris’ research focuses on political theory, political theology, and political thought history as an Arab and Muslim-American studies scholar.
Registration for these events are compulsory for participation.