Visitors to MIT might be surprised to find that the door to every building on campus remains locked, accessible only by card key. This despite the fact that the Covid panic is over, mask mandates have been dropped, routine weekly Covid testing is but a nasty memory, and the campus is busy welcoming the incoming class of 2026.

“Why haven’t things gone back to normal?” you might ask the nice young man sitting in the lobby information booth after you ride someone’s bumper to get in, recalling an age gone by when the most unusual thing to find on campus was a locked door.

Imagine your surprise when he answers, “Well, there’s rising concern about monkeypox as well as the growing danger to students and faculty in these troubled times.”

“Monkeypox?” you wonder. You check the MIT diversity events calendar but can’t find any gay orgies. Nevertheless, tracking the comings and goings of students while making it as difficult as possible for friends, family, guests, alumni, and colleagues to get onto campus certainly helps promote mindless safetyism and an ironclad commitment to administrative bloat.

Despite outrage by the MIT community, approval of the moat by the Cambridge City Council is expected soon since they’ve already rendered Mass. Ave. virtually impassable to evil automobiles, squeezing them down to one lane to accommodate the usually empty bus lane and ultra-virtuous bicycle lane.