> I've done it for people who used my email to sign up for Facebook and Instagram.
That's an entirely different situation though. MIT controls the domain and mail server but not necessarily the account. By this reasoning gmail, outlook, or apple could close many people's accounts on other platforms due to them being in custody of the account.
Maybe MIT does technically have full control and technically the legal right, but if they acted in that way there would be potentially larger consequences. Employers might start preferring other emails or contact methods which would make it harder for MIT to comply with certain regulations. While academia may have been turned into a business there are still high expectations that faculty have high freedom of expression. Every move to limit this, or even imply limiting it, is met with opposition. It jeopardizes the ability to do one's job as a researcher. So I'm not surprised if MIT would never act on "their right".
They can disable the email account but that does nothing to stop an arxiv account. Again this also has risks as academic emails are traditionally preserved. Your correspondence is on a physical piece of paper and changing institutions and affiliations is common. Almost every grad student does this, and nearly every professor was once a grad student.
There's just too many downsides to MIT making such a request. Unless the email was institutional, as in impersonating the institution ( e.g. "info@mit.edu"), or impersonating someone else then they really won't act that way and really shouldn't
Maybe MIT does technically have full control and technically the legal right, but if they acted in that way there would be potentially larger consequences. Employers might start preferring other emails or contact methods which would make it harder for MIT to comply with certain regulations. While academia may have been turned into a business there are still high expectations that faculty have high freedom of expression. Every move to limit this, or even imply limiting it, is met with opposition. It jeopardizes the ability to do one's job as a researcher. So I'm not surprised if MIT would never act on "their right".
They can disable the email account but that does nothing to stop an arxiv account. Again this also has risks as academic emails are traditionally preserved. Your correspondence is on a physical piece of paper and changing institutions and affiliations is common. Almost every grad student does this, and nearly every professor was once a grad student.
There's just too many downsides to MIT making such a request. Unless the email was institutional, as in impersonating the institution ( e.g. "info@mit.edu"), or impersonating someone else then they really won't act that way and really shouldn't