The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has barred the senior class president from further graduation events after she accused the school of aiding “genocide” in Gaza and called for the university to sever its ties to Israel during her commencement address Thursday.
Megha Vemuri also praised her classmates for demonstrating on behalf of Gaza, telling them, “You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine.”
Vemuri’s speech offered at least the third instance this year of a student commencement speaker at an elite school using their platform to condemn Israel and their school’s ties to it. New York University and George Washington University, where two previous incidents occurred, also each took steps to discipline their speakers following the ceremonies.
In a statement, an MIT spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Vemuri’s speech “was not the one that was provided by the speaker in advance. While that individual had a scheduled role at today’s Undergraduate Degree Ceremony, she was notified that she would not be permitted at today’s events.”
The statement continued, “MIT supports free expression but stands by its decision, which was in response to the individual deliberately and repeatedly misleading Commencement organizers and leading a protest from the stage, disrupting an important Institute ceremony.”
Some Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty called for the resignation of MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, in the wake of the speech. Kornbluth, who is Jewish, immediately followed Vemuri’s speech and appeared to obliquely reference it at the top of her remarks.
“OK, listen, folks. At MIT we value freedom of expression. But today is about the graduates,” she said. Following some unintelligible remarks from the crowd, Kornbluth added, “There is a time and a place to express yourselves, and you will have many, many years to do it. Let’s talk today about our graduates.”
Vermuri had drawn loud applause and a few hecklers when she began addressing the Gaza war in the middle of her comments, wearing a red keffiyeh while addressing her classmates and their families. She noted that MIT’s student government had “voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military” and praised her classmates for their activism.
“You called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and you stood in solidarity with the pro-Palestine activists on campus,” she said. “You prevailed because the MIT community that I know would never tolerate a genocide.”
Vemuri condemned MIT’s ties to Israel. “There are no universities left in Gaza. We are watching Israel try to wipe Palestine off the face of the earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it,” she said.
Vemuri continued, “The Israeli occupation forces are the only foreign military that MIT has research ties with. This means that Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people is not only aided and abetted by our country, but our school.”
She called for her fellow newly minted alums to “keep demanding now that MIT cuts the ties,” while also pushing for a general arms embargo to Israel. During the traditional turning of the class rings, Vemuri said, “We will carry with us the stamp of the MIT name, the same name that is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. And so we carry with us the obligation to do everything we can to stop it.”
Vemuri graduated with degrees in computer science, neuroscience and linguistics, according to her LinkedIn profile. Among those also present at the ceremony were the governor of Massachusetts and bestselling author and YouTuber Hank Green, the school’s commencement speaker.
Dr. Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testifies before the House Education and Workforce Committee on December 5, 2023, in Washington, DC. The Committee held a hearing to investigate antisemitism on college campuses. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Kornbluth was one of the original campus presidents who faced intense criticism for their Congressional testimony in the wake of Oct. 7, but she has maintained her post long after the heads of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania lost theirs. Kornbluth has taken extensive steps since in her efforts to beef up MIT’s handling of antisemitism allegations.
Kornbluth faced criticism in 2023 for declining to suspend student protesters who violated campus policies, citing visa concerns. (The Trump administration has since sought to cancel the visas of students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and now is seeking to limit international students, who make up 30% of MIT enrollees, entirely.) Under her leadership, MIT later suspended a pro-Palestinian student group that it said violated rules and blocked the distribution of a pro-Palestinian edition of a student magazine.
The latest incident comes as MIT’s Cambridge neighbor, Harvard, faces down the Trump administration over Trump’s efforts to cripple the school, ostensibly over its response to campus antisemitism. Last week, Kornbluth also announced that MIT was eliminating its diversity, equity and inclusion office, which Harvard has renamed but not dismantled under pressure from Trump.
Some in MIT’s Jewish community stepped up their criticisms of Kornbluth’s leadership following Vemuri’s speech. Talia Khan, a doctoral student at MIT and pro-Israel activist, didn’t explicitly push the president to step down when she spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in January 2024. But in response to Vemuri’s speech, Khan tweeted, “#FreeMITFromSallyKornbluth,” claiming Kornbluth had “let a commencement speaker hijack the stage to demonize Israel.”
A Jewish faculty member at MIT, business school professor Retsef Levi, also tweeted, “MIT deserves a better leader.” And one Jewish Ph.D. graduate in attendance at the ceremony, who identified himself as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said MIT’s failure to halt the speech had “ruin[ed] a special day for hundreds of Jewish graduates and thousands of their family members.”
A representative for the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance, a group formed in response to the school’s handling of the post-Oct. 7 campus climate, told JTA the organization was “profoundly disappointed in President Sally Kornbluth who spoke immediately after the student speaker and has failed to address or even acknowledge what has occurred.” It called for discipline.
On Thursday MIT also announced that 10 new members had been elected to its Corporation, the school’s governing body. They include Jewish diplomat Alan Leventhal, who served as U.S. ambassador to Denmark under President Joe Biden and faced blowback from Copenhagen Business School students for voicing support for Israel after Oct. 7.
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