> Negroponte’s comments—even in light of his later clarification—indicate the structural rot at the heart of Ito’s choices. The Media Lab has long been academia’s fanciest glue trap for morally elastic rich people. ... In this, the Media Lab has apotheosized the capitalistic philosophy of its parent institution ... Theoretically, at least, professors are salaried and tenured so that they can conduct research pursuant to this communal scientific ethos free from any profit imperative. This is not how modern academic science often works in practice, and it is certainly not how things have worked at MIT for the past 100 years.
So the Media Lab, like the rest of MIT, is morally rotten because of its extreme reliance on private sector funding. But then:
> Over the course of the past century, MIT became one of the best brands in the world, a name that confers instant credibility and stature on all who are associated with it. Rather than protect the inherent specialness of this brand, the Media Lab soiled it again and again
So, MIT is credible and the moral rot is isolated to the Media Lab?
Well, overall, the article presents some facts and seems to want to make a larger point, but then fails to really make any point. The whole discussion of the 1919 "Technology Plan" goes nowhere and it's unclear if the author thinks it was a good or bad (or neutral) idea.
Given that the article seems to have been intended to be persuasive, it would have been better if the article clearly stated either that the Media Lab took the Technology Plan too far, or if the Technology Plan was flawed from the beginning. At least then there would be a clear point which readers could agree or disagree with.