During a Dec. 5 congressional hearing, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (our alma mater) awakened millions to the double standards, hypocrisy, and moral corruption on university campuses. The presidents’ evasiveness , particularly when asked whether calling for an intifada or for the extermination of Jews constituted impermissible conduct, was both puzzling and deeply offensive to most who saw it, especially alumni .

Observers with any awareness of campus wokeness inevitably contrasted their equivocation to seeing students punished for using the “wrong” pronouns, promoting “fatphobia,” or making a statement at odds with campus orthodoxy. Then there are the professors being fired or drummed off campus for inviting the wrong speakers or making innocuous comments deemed offensive by students. But the carefully crafted rules and codes designed to shield students from the most trivial “microaggressions” and ideas that make them uncomfortable suddenly vanished in dealing with antisemitic intimidation and harassment as well as gross disruption of school operations.

We are among vast numbers of alumni and others who cannot fathom how students engaging in egregious conduct — threats, intimidation, and harassment — have escaped consequences. It is as though moral compasses no longer show the way. We can explain it.

We discovered subsequently that there is a closely guarded secret, even in public testimony before Congress, that explains the seeming inaction. At least at MIT, responsibility for student discipline is vested solely in a committee of the faculty whose members enjoy a cloak of anonymity. President Sally Kornbluth is powerless except to make recommendations to this committee.

We do not know for certain whether a similar structure exists at Harvard, Penn, or elsewhere, but comments from highly placed administrators suggest that the faculty rule the roost at many universities. The faculty revolt and subsequent hounding and resignation of Harvard President Larry Summers in 2006 for simply posing a controversial, academic question is evidence of a structure that needs reconstruction.

It appears that the tenured professors who are free to radicalize students with impunity then get to rule on whether the fruits of their teachings justify discipline. It is no wonder that in this environment, the intense surge in antisemitism, pro-Hamas protests, intimidation, and harassment has gone unpunished. The lack of diversity of viewpoints on campuses today seems to excuse all manner of moral turpitude — as long as it is in the “right” direction.

Understanding the reasons for it does not mitigate the institutional and personal embarrassment of the three university presidents’ evasive testimonies before the House committee. It was their chance to make clear statements and to explain exactly why appalling behavior met with almost no opposition or consequences. One possible explanation is fear of faculty retribution, but they should have placed accountability where it belongs, which at MIT at least, is the still nameless faculty committee. Above all, their testimonies should have reflected that they know right from wrong.

Another contributing factor is the power and sheer mass of the diversity, equity, and inclusion university bureaucracies that exult in tribalizing the student body and choosing certain favored “oppressed” subpopulations for special protection. Clearly, a microcosm of the Holocaust in southern Israel was insufficient to recognize that Jewish students are a group to whom protection should be afforded. Instead, it was the protesters, provocateurs, and intimidators who received that treatment.

If universities are, indeed, as broken as they seem, the only path to redemption lies in reforming the process of faculty evaluation and oversight and seeking professors who teach and train students in critical thinking. How and whether this happens is up to university boards and trustees, but until it does, we call for the suspension of all philanthropy.

Andrew I. Fillat spent his career in technology venture capital and information technology companies. He is also the co-inventor of relational databases. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger distinguished fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. They were undergraduates together at MIT.