By Keneci Channel
Dorian Abbot -- a University of Chicago associate geophysics professor told Fox News Tuesday that the activists and MIT academics were outraged by comments he and another professor, Ivan Marinovic, made in an August Newsweek opinion piece, critical of current diversity, equity, and inclusion standards in higher education.
Abbot said that after hearing the news about his cancelled event, his wife, who was born in Ukraine and had to be baptized in secret, likened the situation to her time living under the Soviet Union. "When she heard about what was happening on campus when I first told her she said ‘it sounds like what my mother told me about Soviet times,’" he said.
According to an MIT spokesperson, the lecture, which is hosted by the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, wasn’t being held this year "at the discretion of the department."
"We felt that with the current distractions we would not be in a position to hold an effective outreach event," van der Hilst said in a statement. ".... I made this decision at my discretion, after consulting with faculty and students in the department, and knowing that some might mistake it as an affront on academic freedom — a characterization I do not agree with."