MIT’s annual Alumni Leadership Conference (ALC) is back in person after the Covid interregnum. The excitement was palpable, at least after bewildered alums navigated their way through the security perimeter of the now permanently locked-down campus.

The MIT Alumni Association did a great job wokesplaining how MIT can be both a physical and ideological fortress while at the same time being open, welcoming, and innovative. On opening day Chancellor Melissa Nobles served up a word salad with happy dressing, patting herself on the back for being a tireless advocate of student well being. Left undescribed, to an audience unaware of her condemnation of both MIT and Western Science for being systemically racist, was her campaign to decolonize STEM while embracing indigenous ways of knowing.

MIT distinguishes itself from liberal arts universities graduating swarms of social justice warriors by concentrating instead on graduating swarms of social justice engineers. Because social engineering is how empowered experts are going to build a better world. Using the persuasive power of Compulsory Community Belonging (CCB), vast and disparate groups of students and scholars with divergent interests are being guided to work toward one set of common goals. Why everyone should have the same goals and how this diversifies innovation was left as an exercise for critical thinkers.