Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Higher Education Institution

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Center for Constructive Communication (CCC)

MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication officially launched on January 13, 2021, led by Professor Deb Roy at the MIT Media Lab. It started with over $10 million in funding to design new communication tools and networks aimed at bridging social, cultural, and political divides. According to this MIT news article, Initial funding came “from foundations, corporations, government programs, and philanthropists.”

Notable Funders

Reid Hoffman

Amount not identified; funding relationship documented here

Hoffman is a billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn. In November 2023, he called for opposition to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for her criticism of Israel. In July 2025, Hoffman appeared on the podcast of Joe Lonsdale (a billionaire Trump ally who led a national push to criminalize homelessness) and stated:

How we get people working together in the center is one of the things that you and I really agree on [because] the loud crazy voices—those are just not helpful. … Let’s think about…universities as an example. I would have said ‘you’re not going to get any more federal money unless you produce a report about diversity of thought on campus…’ Because diversity of thought, discussion, intellectual discourse—that is what’s fundamental to universities. … I’ve gone and argued against a lot of lefties who…say ‘Israel is committing genocide’ against Palestine. No it’s not. Genocide is something different. You could say there’s civilian casualties and some ways that the war is being promulgated that’s really suboptimal. You can argue about that, but it’s not genocide. And to use that kind of rhetoric is the kind of thing that then creates hatred.

Civil Discourse Project

Civil Discourse Project, part of MIT Concourse, is a dialogue initiative that was created in 2023. It is co-directed by MIT philosophy professors Alex Byrne and Brad Skow, alongside historian Anne McCants and political philosopher Linda Rabieh. The initiative partners with Braver Angels and with Yascha Mounk’s online magazine, Persuasion, along with his podcast, “The Good Fight.” Events have included debates about gender affirming care, climate change, the shortcomings of social justice and feminist movements, and the defensibility of capitalism.

Notable People

Alex Byrne

Founding co-director of the Civil Discourse Project

Byrne is a philosophy professor at MIT. He is co-chair of MIT’s Heterodox Academy chapter.

Brad Skow

Founding co-director of the Civil Discourse Project

Skow is a philosophy professor at MIT. He is co-chair of MIT’s Heterodox Academy chapter.

Linda Rabieh

Lecturer at MIT Concourse, which houses the Civil Discourse Project

Rabieh is a political philosopher. She is named in MIT’s announcement of the Civil Discourse Project as one of the four primary people overseeing the project. Rabieh serves on the board of MIT Hillel (an explicitly anti-BDS organization).

Notable Funders

Arthur Vining Davis Foundations

~$250,000 (2023)

AVDF has made significant grants to Hillel International (an explicitly anti-BDS organization) and Tablet magazine (a self-described “Jewish, Zionist publication” whose editor-in-chief has called on Jewish communal groups to replace leaders who do not explicitly support Israel). Refer to UNCIVIL’s June 2026 Funder Analysis for more details on AVDF’s giving.

MIT Open Discourse Society (MODS)

The Open Discourse Society is a student group “whose goal is to cultivate civil discourse and intellectual diversity.” They have hosted presentations by speakers including Dennis Prager (co-founder of PragerU, which SPLC describes as a “far-right propaganda” group), Jay Bhattacharya (a prominent COVID-19 skeptic whom President Trump appointed to lead the NIH and then to serve as acting director of the CDC), Steve Kirsch (whom FactCheck.org describes as a “former tech entrepreneur whose current enterprise is spreading vaccine misinformation online”), and Simon Amaya Price (whom GLAAD describes as an activist who travels the country to “push anti-trans legislation into local communities”). Some MODS events have been co-sponsored by conservative/libertarian think tanks, such as ACTA (an advisory board member to the far-right “Project 2025”) and the National Association for Scholars (an advisory board member to the far-right “Project 2025”).

Notable Funders

MIT Free Speech Alliance (MFSA)

Listed as co-sponsor of MODS debates.

MFSA is a chapter of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, which is affiliated with the right-wing American Council for Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an advisory board member to the far-right “Project 2025.” MFSA’s mission statement says that its goal is “to help restore the balance between the foundational Enlightenment Values that enabled the scientific revolution versus the Postmodern/Critical Theory ideology that displaced them” and calls for “restructuring of the most problematic elements of MIT's programs that inculcate an identitarian orthodoxy under an oppressor/oppressed rubric.” According to the MFSA website, MODS has “co-sponsored the MFSA on-campus debates since 2024,” and “MODS is endorsed and supported by the MIT Free Speech Alliance.”

Partnerships

Constructive Dialogue Institute

Senior leaders of MIT have been recent participants in a training program by Constructive Dialogue Institute. Refer to the "Constructive Dialogue Institute" entry for details about the organization's leadership and funders.

Campus Policy Context

According to an FAQ on MIT’s website, the institution received “just under $4 million” between FY2015 and FY2024 “for individual research projects through the Israeli Ministry of Defense.” In April and May of 2024, demonstrators at an encampment called on MIT to terminate funding ties with the Israeli Ministry of Defense; MIT rejected this demand, determining that there were “a number of compelling reasons not to unilaterally terminate active research agreements made by individual PIs in compliance with law and policy.”