Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s 2025 class president was barred from graduation after she delivered a pro-Palestine speech at a commencement event the day before. Speaking to her classmates at the One MIT ceremony, Megha Vemuri accused Israel of trying to “wipe Palestine off the face of the earth,” and said that her soon-to-be alma mater “is a part of it.”
Like dozens of universities across the country, the MIT campus was the site of protest encampments over Israel’s invasion of Gaza. One demand shared broadly among the student protest groups across the country was that their institutions divest from the state of Israel, a tactic that was successfully pioneered during the protest movement against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.
Vemuri began her speech by lauding her classmates for the campus protest movement and the broad support it received across the student body. “You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine,” she said, recalling that MIT’s undergraduate organization and graduate student union voted “overwhelmingly” to cut ties with Israel and called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. “You faced threats, intimidation, and suppression coming from all directions, especially from your own university officials,” Vemuri continued.
On May 6, 2024, MIT President Sally Kornbluth informed students that they had to vacate their protest encampment or face suspension, barring them from classes, exams, or research. The action was being taken despite her acknowledging that there had been no instances of violence or other threats to students’ safety: “no matter how peaceful the students’ behavior may be, unilaterally taking over a central portion of our campus for one side of a hotly disputed issue and precluding use by other members of our community is not right.” Students reclaimed the encampment site shortly thereafter, but three days later, police in riot gear showed up at the site, breaking down the encampment structures and arresting ten protesters.
Taking the stage after Vemuri at the One MIT ceremony, Kornbluth only vaguely referenced the protest movement, saying that “at MIT, we allow a lot of room for disagreement, whether the subject is scientific, personal or political.” After the ceremony, Vemuri was informed by the school’s leadership that she was banned from campus until after graduation. She released a statement in response: “Gazan students did not get to walk because Israel murdered them, displaced them from their homes, and destroyed their schools. I see no need for me to walk across the stage of an institution that is complicit in genocide.”
A report from the MIT Coalition for Palestine published in October 2024 details how the institution has strong ties to Israel, including “millions of dollars from the Israeli Ministry of Defense” for various research projects aimed at developing their military technology. The report also highlights the school’s collaborations with “companies that sell vast amounts of weapons to Israel,” including Lockheed Martin, as well as Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military contractor.
