MFSA 2025 Conference

MFSA's 2025 Annual Conference

Thursday, September 25, 2025 • Le Meridien Boston Cambridge

The MIT Free Speech Alliance's third annual conference will be held in Cambridge, MA on Thursday, September 25, 2025. As with our 2024 conference, this year's conference takes place on the eve of MIT's Alumni Leadership Conference, and we encourage ALC attendees to attend our conference as well.

Our 2025 program is currently in development, but will include sessions lead by MIT students, faculty, alumni, and administrators, with additional perspectives from other individuals and organizations working for the cause of free speech and academic freedom in higher education. For further information on our conference experience, we encourage you to check out our 2023 and 2024 conference pages and watch our previous sessions, which are available for viewing on MFSA's YouTube Page.

Attendance at MFSA's Annual Conference is free, though spaces are limited, and early registration is encouraged. Registration may be completed by clicking the button below.

If you have any questions regarding conference details or logistics, please email MFSA Executive Director Peter Bonilla.

Conference Details and Logistics

MFSA's Conference will take place at the Le Meridien Boston Cambridge hotel (20 Sidney St), adjacent to MIT's campus and near Cambridge's Central Square.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided at the conference, which will run from roughly 8:00 a.m - 5:00 p.m. As a reference, the program from our 2024 conference can be viewed at this page.

For attendees traveling from out of town, MFSA has reserved a small room block at the Le Meridien at the rate of $329 per night. This rate is available through September 3, 2025. For further information, contact MFSA Executive Director Peter Bonilla.

Keynote Speaker: Jonathan Rauch

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Contributing Writer, The Atlantic

onathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and the author of eight books including Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought and The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. He has also received the magazine industry’s two leading prizes — the National Magazine Award (the industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) and the National Headliner Award. Major topics of his writing and speeches include freedom of speech and its particular importance to the LGBT community and other minorities as well as fighting trolling, disinformation, canceling, and other cutting-edge propaganda tactics that seek to unmoor our country from reality.

Rauch is the author, most recently, of Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain With Democracy, published in 2025 by Yale University Press. His other books include The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, Government’s End: Why Washington Stopped Working, Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, and the memoir Denial: My 25 Years Without a Soul. His writing, on everything from government and public policy to introversion to animal rights, has appeared in The Atlantic, National Journal, The New Republic, The Economist, Reason, Harper’s, Fortune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He has also appeared as a guest on many radio and television shows, including NBC’s Meet the Press and NPR’s NewsHour.