At a politically charged commencement ceremony on Thursday, MIT’s class of 2025 president Megha Vemuri, an Indian-American student, used her platform to deliver a bold pro-Palestinian message, sharply criticising the university’s ties to Israel and calling on fellow graduates to take a stand.Wearing a red keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, Vemuri addressed a crowd of graduates, families, and faculty, saying, “You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine.”Her remarks came amid ongoing nationwide campus unrest over the war in Gaza and US university connections to defence and research institutions tied to the conflict. In her speech, Vemuri acknowledged the uncertainty gripping academia and the intense pressures faced by student activists.“It is no secret that at this time, academic institutions across the country are shrouded in a dark cloud of uncertainty,” she said. “There is a lot of fear in many of our hearts.”Vemuri pointed to MIT’s research links with the Israeli military as a source of shame and moral conflict for the institution. “The Israeli occupation forces are the only foreign military that MIT has research ties with,” she said. “This means that Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people is not only aided and abetted by our country, but our school.”She noted that both MIT’s undergraduate body and its graduate student union had, in recent months, voted “overwhelmingly to cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military.”“You faced threats, intimidation and suppression coming from all directions, especially your own university officials, but you prevailed,” she told graduates. “Because the MIT community that I know would never tolerate a genocide.”Referring to the destruction of higher education infrastructure in Gaza, Vemuri added: “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.”The student leader concluded her address with a symbolic gesture, asking graduates to turn their MIT class rings so that the emblem faced outward—a tradition symbolising their move into the wider world. But her message was pointed.“We carry with us the obligation to do everything we can to stop it,” she said. “MIT is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”
