This is a real travesty. While sexual harassment deserves suspension from future teaching, the existence of Lewin's (highly regarded and instructive) lectures in no wise endorses or encourages sexual harassment, and their loss is truly detrimental.
I agree that the loss of quality teaching materials to the public is an unfortunate result of this. But I can see at least three ways in which this may have been a very reasonable decision.
First, as others have pointed out, the linked statement suggests (without providing details) that MIT was concerned that Lewin would continue a pattern of using his connection with their online courses to harass students. Without being privy to their investigation we don't know what all led to that ongoing concern, but it's plausible to assume they have reasons.
Second, it may be that MIT's policy in these cases is to formally cut all ties with the harasser, or something to that effect. This might be the online equivalent of insisting that a disgraced emeritus professor give up their office on campus. There are clearly downsides to the community for such a policy, but there are indisputable benefits as well.
And finally, it strikes me that MIT has very little leverage to punish a retired professor who damages the university's reputation and community in this way. But this action of taking down a big part of his life's work is a way of hitting him right in his legacy. I know that were I in his shoes, I would be devastated by such a decision. I hope it has a strong deterrent effect on any other faculty who might be prone to similar abuses of their positions.
> But this action of taking down a big part of his life's work is a way of hitting him right in his legacy.
This is something I really didn't need to read on the internet today. Hitting a physicist right in his legacy. I'll just turn off my computer now, I'm seeing red, can't write a reasonable response to that.
Just for context, I'm a physics professor myself. And the thing that gets me seeing red, entirely too often, is watching my brilliant female students drift away from the field where they have the potential to contribute so much. Not for any specific or well defined reason, just because they don't really feel comfortable there. It always looks perfectly reasonable on a case by case basis, but there's an unmistakable pattern in the whole.
Math and the other sciences don't suffer from this as much these days: folks drift away there, too, but the gender disparity isn't as great. Among the natural sciences, it's just physics that sticks out.[0] So yeah, right in his legacy. I'm actually pretty happy to see punishments with teeth for guys whose actions perpetuate the situation.
[0] To the extent that computer science is a math/science subject, it's worth noting that CS has plummeted down to near-physics levels of gender disparity in recent years. I think it's very likely that similar cultural issues are at work.
This is exactly my opinion as well. We don't remove books from the library because the author had moral failings, or even if the author committed genocide. The content has value and should be preserved. The removal of the content from OCW is the step too far. Lewin absolutely should be restricted from further teaching at MIT or on MITx but the work itself should not be considered problematic.
It's weird. I'm all for punishing sexual harassment, but I just don't see how removing his content from OCW does anything but punish society. It's not like static material is suddenly going to start harassing people.
As you say, they wouldn't remove an author's books in this case. How are course notes and videos any different?
I've talked about this at greater length in another comment, but removing OCW content strikes me as a serious blow to any professor's legacy. For someone who invested years into that project, that's one heck of a punishment; it's one of the harshest things I can think of that MIT could do to a retired professor.
They're probably worried about being perceived as supporting the professor by having his lectures online. It's silly, but that's the world we live in. There are people who will absolutely lose their minds over the thought of this guy's lectures being online after a sexual harassment claim.
The only sentence in the press release specifically about the decision to remove the lectures, afaict, is this one:
> Following broad consultation among faculty, MIT is indefinitely removing Lewin’s online courses, in the interest of preventing any further inappropriate behavior.
It sounds like they're worried that just having courses up (even if not offered) might encourage future interaction between students using the material and the person listed as instructor (e.g. by email), which they don't want to provide as an avenue. They do have an archive of past courses [1], so one in-between option might've been to remove them from the current MITx site and stick them in the archive. But it's possible they were worried that would be insufficient. (It's also possible I don't understand how MITx courses are organized, and what the archive is for.)
> It sounds like they're worried that just having courses up (even if not offered) might encourage future interaction between students using the material and the person listed as instructor (e.g. by email)
Another interpretation is that other current or future faculty could get ideas about sexually harassing online students. "... preventing any further inappropriate behavior..." sounds like they're worried about other current or future faculty being pervs, and want to nuke him from orbit.
So? Remove Walter Lewin from MITx. Don't punish former and current students (I am one) by removing that absolutely amazing resource that is the Lewin Physics video lectures.
Walter Lewin's course took me from failing physics to loving the field so much that I switched my major from comp sci to physics.
I am disgusted that MIT chose to respond in this way. An institution of learning should know better than to do the digital equivalent of a book burning.
