MIT class president barred from main graduation ceremony after accusing Israel of 'genocide' in commencement speech
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) 2025 class president accused the school of supporting 'genocide' in Gaza during her speech at a commencement event on May 29.
The student speaker also critiqued the university for being a 'part' of what she called Israel’s attempt to 'wipe Palestine off the face of the earth.'
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) 2025 class president accused the school of supporting “genocide” in Gaza during her speech at a commencement event on May 29.
Megha Vemuri, the speaker, critiqued the university for being a “part” of what she called Israel’s attempt to “wipe Palestine off the face of the earth,” according to a video published by Fox News. She was subsequently prohibited from attending the university’s main commencement ceremony on May 30.
“Right now, while we prepare to graduate and move forward with our lives, there are no universities left in Gaza,” Vemuri said. MIT’s class president went on to praise the school’s students for voting to “cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military.”
“You faced threats, intimidation and suppression coming from all directions, especially your own university officials,” Vemuri told pro-Palestine activists in the crowd.
Vemuri specifically critiqued MIT’s “research ties” with the Israeli military, which she referred to as “Israeli occupation forces.”
During Vemuri’s speech, Jewish students left the premises while other spectators shouted “shame” at the speaker, as reported by The New York Post. One student waved a Palestinian flag in protest.
In a statement provided to Campus Reform, a MIT spokesperson said that Vemuri’s speech was not the one that she provided to the school in advance.
The spokesperson noted that Vemuri was barred from the degree ceremony the next day. “While that individual had a scheduled role at Friday’s Undergraduate Degree Ceremony, she was notified that she would not be permitted at that day’s events,” the official explained.
“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,” the spokesperson concluded.
In response to being banned from MIT’s the graduation ceremony, Vemuri told CNN, “I see no need for me to walk across the stage of an institution that is complicit in this genocide.”
The student added that she believed the MIT administrators “massively overstepped their roles” to punish her with “no indication of any specific policy broken.”
Vemuri is not the first person at MIT to make related anti-Israel statements. Campus Reform reported in November that MIT professor Michel DeGraff described Zionism as a “mind infection” and, like Vemuri, contended that Israel was guilty of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
