“These indigenous people were killed for their land,” said Alvin Harvey, SM ’20, an Aero/Astro PhD student and a member of the Navajo Nation, in a presentation to a faculty meeting this spring. “As a land grant college, MIT has a duty to support Indigenous people and students.”
MIT is creating a tenure-track position in Native American studies, beginning in 2023, and adding two new positions in the MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars Program, at least one of which will be assigned to an expert in Native American studies. Over the next two years, the Institute will also support two scholarships for graduates in the MIT Indigenous Language Initiative, a master’s program launched in 2003. MIT is also funding an investigation into Walker and his role. “MIT has a responsibility to expose and illuminate that history so we can learn from it,” Reif wrote.
As David S. Lowry ’03, Distinguished Fellow in Native American Studies, who taught 21H.283 this year, told the faculty, facing hard truths “really creates the future of MIT, where we are all, in all communities, in all disciplines.” , can begin to take care of each other.”