They're trying to turn out corporate titans with big hearts over at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Part of the school's official mission is "to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world." Each year, the school holds a Diversity Day, to teach students that protecting people's differences makes for good business as well as good ethics. The MBA curriculum is heavy with offerings on corporate responsibility.
So, is Sloan succeeding?
Not entirely, judging by a stir that began when Sloan's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Club sent an invitation to the whole school for an end-of-semester celebration last December.
Not everyone was pleased to be invited.
"I don't care what you do among yourselves," one student fired back. "But I feel [sick] when you are trying to promote it . . . You may not know that but in Russia, beating gays is encouraged by vast majority of people because they insult society and nature."
In closing, the student used an antigay epithet and warned club members that if they ever dared to contact him again, "I swear you won't be able to study at Sloan for some time because you will spend it at the resuscitation department."
Club members, understandably rattled, called campus police. The student was evaluated and deemed to be no immediate threat to his fellow students.
In February, the student went before MIT's Committee on Discipline. Sheila Widnall, the committee's chairwoman, would not discuss the case, or even confirm that the student was reviewed by the committee.
Whatever punishment - if any - the committee handed down did not include suspension or expulsion. According to the New England Blade, a gay weekly, the student apologized. A public forum was held to discuss the incident, and David C. Schmittlein, dean of the Sloan School, sent out an announcement reiterating the school's commitment to tolerance.
But many students, gay and straight, were angry at the apparently light punishment and said so publicly.
As the incident became public, there was some soul searching among members of the class of 2008.
Not over tolerance and justice, mind you. About public relations and the Sloan "brand."
After all, publicity about a homophobic threat, and complaints about the administration's response, might make prospective students think twice before dropping $44,556 a year to study there. Which in turn might lower the school's top-flight reputation, making a Sloan MBA less impressive to employers.
After a news story appeared May 5, a Sloan student sent out a group e-mail saying: "I really wonder who benefits from speaking to the press . . . One thing is sure - no one in our community benefits from causing damage to our school brand."
Members of the LGBT Club defended themselves.
"It is a delicate balance," wrote one. "How do we . . . have a public dialogue about this issue yet avoid negative media coverage and damage to the Sloan brand?"
Talking about the incident would actually help the brand, he continued. By "helping to focus the story on the positives (such as how we plan to move on from this) we hope to demonstrate that Sloan will not stand for such acts."
You've got to admire that optimism. But even this student was fretting about his school's image when he should have been telling the résumé protectors to buzz off because there are bigger principles at stake.
It's one thing for MIT to award a homophobe one of its lustrous MBAs. But Sloan also appears to be grooming corporate leaders who think embarrassing facts should be kept from the public.
That's the attitude that has brought scandal to many a company in recent years. It is the attitude that made
And that's even more dangerous than bigotry.
