At the same time, it's easy to believe that MIT of 2013 is very different than MIT of 1988.
While that's entirely possible, MIT was established in 1861. I think the old boys club was established long before 1988.
I’m pretty sure MIT had a “state school” stigma until after WWII. Vandaveer Bush made sure they got lots of war research.
It's very hard to extract Robert Tappan Morris from the context of his father being an extremely powerful man when trying to figure out how he managed to get away with what he did.