MIT class president barred from graduation ceremony after pro-Palestinian speech

Straits Times

3 days ago

At a university-wide ceremony on May 29 at MIT's campus, Ms Megha Vemuri denounced MIT's ties with Israel. PHOTO: AFP
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - The 2025 class president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was barred from a graduation ceremony on May 30 after delivering a pro-Palestinian speech during a commencement event the day before.
The student, Ms Megha Vemuri, is the latest to face discipline after using a graduation as a forum to protest Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.
At a university-wide ceremony on May 29 at MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ms Vemuri commended students who protested on behalf of Palestinians and denounced MIT's ties with Israel.
The Boston Globe reported in 2024 that based on data from the US Department of Education, MIT reported receiving US$2.8 million (S$3.61 million) in grants, gifts and contracts from Israeli entities between 2020 and 2024.
School officials confirmed that they later told Ms Vemuri that she was prohibited from attending the undergraduate ceremony on May 30.
'MIT supports free expression but stands by its decision, which was in response to the individual deliberately and repeatedly misleading Commencement organisers and leading a protest from the stage,' a school spokesperson said in a statement.
The school said that Ms Vemuri, who grew up in Georgia, will receive her degree.
Mr Sarat Vemuri, her father, said that she was a double major, in computation and cognition and linguistics, and was told that she will receive her diploma by mail.
He otherwise referred questions to his daughter, who provided a statement saying that she was not disappointed to miss the May 30 ceremony.
'I see no need for me to walk across the stage of an institution that is complicit in this genocide,' she wrote.
She added that she was 'disappointed' in MIT's response, saying school officials 'massively overstepped their roles to punish me without merit or due process.'
College campuses have been contending with protest encampments and accusations of anti-Semitism since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Those tensions, coupled with the Trump administration's attacks on universities, have left some school communities wrestling with how to balance civility and safety with open expression and debate.
And at some schools students looking to make a statement have seized on end-of-year ceremonies as a powerful platform, delivering speeches that diverged from the remarks they had told school officials they would make.
At New York University in mid-May, officials withheld a diploma from, a student, Mr Logan Rozos, after he referred to 'the atrocities currently happening in Palestine' in a commencement speech.
At George Washington University, a graduate named Cecilia Culver used her speech to urge others to not donate to the school and repeated requests for it to divest from companies doing business in Israel.
The university barred her from campus and university-sponsored events.
At MIT, Ms Vemuri was one of nine speakers at May 29's Onemit Commencement Ceremony.
Ms Vemuri's speech, read from wrinkled sheets of paper, was about four minutes long and addressed her classmates and some of their efforts to protest Israel.
'You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine,' she said, adding, 'the MIT community that I know would never tolerate a genocide.'
After Ms Vemuri left the dais to cheers, Dr Sally Kornbluth, the school president, spoke next. She paused as some in the audience chanted.
'OK, listen folks,' she said. 'At MIT, we believe in freedom of expression. But today is about the graduates.'
Dr Kornbluth has found herself on this type of tightrope before. In December 2023, she was one of three university presidents called to testify before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The committee pressed the officials over their responses to campus protests and allegations of anti-Semitism.
Dr Kornbluth managed to avoid the level of criticism levied at Dr Claudine Gay of Harvard and Dr Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, who were soon replaced by their schools.
Throughout most of the 2023-2024 school year, pro-Palestinian encampments and tense stand-offs played out on many campuses across the country.
The 2024 graduation ceremonies were often used as forums for protest, including orchestrated walkouts. Generally, protesters and speakers were not disciplined.
But universities, especially elite ones like MIT and its Cambridge neighbour, Harvard, have been under even more pressure since President Donald Trump took office in January.
His administration is yanking federal funding for grants and research, launching investigations into diversity programmes and trying to cut international enrolment.
Schools everywhere feel the threat, and hope to avoid the government's scrutiny.
Ms Vemuri's speech prompted criticism from House Speaker Mike Johnson, a key ally of Mr Trump's.
'Ignorant. Hateful. Morally bankrupt. Where is the shame–or appropriate response from the institution?' he wrote on the social platform X. 'Have your children avoid MIT & the Ivy League at all costs.' NYTIMES
Jack Begg contributed research.
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