page_title: Philip Gale
section_title: Media coverage and Scientology
hierarchical_section_title: Philip Gale / Media coverage and Scientology
caption_attribution_description: English: Phil on drums
context_page_description: Philip Gale was an American pioneering Internet software developer, computer prodigy, and sophomore student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was notable for having written Total Access while at MIT, and was hired by EarthLink at the age of 16 to work on its development. In 2008, the company had more than one million users. By the age of 17, Gale had earned roughly a million dollars' worth of stock options at EarthLink for his innovative ISP programs.
  In 1995, Gale's father died from a heart attack, and friends said Gale struggled to come to terms with the loss. He returned to MIT in 1996 and became a music major. After complaints of boredom and depression, on March 13, 1998, Gale jumped to his death from a classroom on the 15th floor of a building on the MIT campus.
context_section_description: Gale was raised a Scientologist, but at the time of his death he had distanced himself from its practices. Gale was said to have fully abandoned his Scientology beliefs while at EarthLink. A close friend at EarthLink, Brian Ladner, said that "Leaving Scientology was a traumatic experience. He was brought up thinking it was the only way." Ladner says while they worked together, he introduced Gale to Church of the SubGenius, which specializes in debunking cults and has developed its own cult following. During that period, Ladner reported that Gale hung a poster of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, SubGenius' fictional spiritual leader, on his office door. According to Ladner, the pair of young men had also done a lot of partying in Los Angeles, and worked for a time on a "pornographic Web site hosted by EarthLink".
  Shortly after Gale's death, speculation on campus, in the media, and on the Internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology arose. Questions arose about the role his Scientology background may have played in his suicide, particularly because he died on the day that adherents celebrate founder L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. Gale had been in contact with a reporter for the Boston Herald and had been interviewed as part of a scathing 5-part series titled "Scientology Unmasked", published March 1 through 5, 1998, just days before his suicide by Joseph Mallia. Though Gale was not named in the special report he had been interviewed for, Mallia also wrote an article about his death shortly thereafter.
  Matthew Munsey, an MIT student who witnessed Gale's suicide, created a website called "Who is Philip Gale?" in an effort to make sense of the incident. He stated "Since this tragedy, I have thought a great deal about Philip and what he was trying to say. These questions need to be answered. Meanwhile, I will collect information here." This site included some personal notes from friends and photos, until it was taken down; it can only be accessed by web archival machines.
  Others who spoke publicly dismissed the idea that Scientology was significant in his suicide. Lauren McLeod, a reporter with the Concord Journal and friend of Gale's, said that he had been struggling to deal with lasting grief following his father's sudden death from a heart attack in October 1995. His friend Eric Hu said that Gale had complained of being depressed and bored. Another friend from EarthLink had received an email expressing his discontent about a week before his death.
  In November 1999 a fellow MIT student, Matthew Herper, published an article reflecting on several student deaths, including Gale's suicide.
  People magazine featured Gale's story in a 2001 series of articles on suicides at MIT, describing him as a music major "so prodigiously bright that he counted few of his much older peers as intellectual equals". His mother and sister were interviewed and photographed for the article. Though it touched on Gale's Scientology upbringing, it mostly focused on the high suicide rate at MIT and student access to health care on campus.
  In August 2001, the National Public Radio program All Things Considered noted that, in the wake of Gale's death, MIT had investigated how to deal with issues of student suicides. The student Eric Plosky commented to NPR,
  "In many ways, suicide has been looked on as something that's just part and parcel of life at the Institute. That ingrained thinking historically, I think, has prevented administrators from looking at suicide as a problem to which there might be some reasonable response."
  The investigative report released by MIT identified deficiencies within its mental health program. Between 1995 and 2015, the rate of suicides among MIT undergraduate students was 50% higher than the national average for college students, and slightly higher than comparable figures at nearby Harvard University. In a 2015 interview, MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart acknowledged that the numbers were of concern, but had improved since the early 2000s.
caption: Gale on drums
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