“... too ‘chicken’ to speak up and get called ugly names. “
No. That is not it. The MIT Administration: their careers depend on them acting like this.
Constrast with Sue Braverman. She says publicly what everyone can see: the bias of the Met Police and the anti-jewish/Israel hate motivating the protests, and she is the one who is fired.
Pretending that the only consequences is being subject to meaningless screeching by activists is minimizing the problem.
This is true, just as with pushing the Covid Vax, a professional career could be lost overnight if you back the “wrong” side, meaning the side without the power to dictate accepted belief systems.