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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) barred Indian-American student Megha Vemuri from attending her graduation ceremony after she delivered a pro-Palestine speech during an official campus event on Thursday, May 29. Megha, who is the Class of 2025 president, was also removed from her role as marshal for the commencement and asked to stay off campus for most of the day, along with her family.
The action was communicated by MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles, who accused Megha of misleading organisers and violating university guidelines. “You deliberately and repeatedly misled Commencement organizers,” Nobles wrote in an email, according to The Boston Globe. “Your decision to lead a protest from the stage, disrupting an important institute ceremony, was a violation of MIT’s time, place and manner rules for campus expression.”
Megha had used the platform to criticise Israel’s military actions in Gaza and condemned MIT’s institutional ties to the Israeli military. Wearing a red keffiye, which is a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, she called on fellow students to speak up.
“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 said. “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 also praised students who had pushed for the university to sever ties with Israel. “Last spring, MIT's undergraduate body and Graduate Student Union voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military. You called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and you stood in solidarity with the pro-Palestine activists on campus," she added.