The speech that got MIT's 2025 class president banned from graduation
Megha Vemuri, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 2025 class president, was banned from participating in her graduation commencement ceremony last week, after she accused the university of having 'aided and abetted' Israel's 'assault on the Palestinian people' during a speech on campus the day before.
On Thursday, Vemuri took to the stage at the OneMIT commencement ceremony, donning a keffiyeh — a traditional scarf worn by Arab communities that has been a symbol of Palestinian nationalism for decades — over her graduation gown. During her speech, Vemuri denounced Israel's war in Gaza and criticized the university for its ties to the country's military.
'Right now, while we prepare to graduate and move forward with our lives, there are no universities left in Gaza,' Vemuri said. 'We are watching Israel try to wipe out Palestine off the face of the earth, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it.'
According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 54,418 people have been killed and 124,190 injured in Gaza amid Israel's ongoing attack in the region since Hamas' terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That attack killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took around 250 hostage, according to Israeli counts.
Vemuri's speech starts around the 55:30 mark, and her remarks related to Gaza begin at the 56:00 mark:
At the end of her speech, Vemuri referenced a decades-old MIT tradition in which graduating students turn their class rings, featuring their university's mascot, 'Tim the Beaver,' outward, symbolizing that their time at MIT is now in the past.
'As you lift it off your fingers, notice that the beaver is no longer facing you; it is now facing the world,' Vemuri said. 'This is a world that we will be entering with an immeasurable responsibility. 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.'
After Vemuri finished her speech, Sally Kornbluth, the university's president, tried to settle the crowd. 'At MIT, we believe in freedom of expression. But today is about the graduates,' Kornbluth said.
Without naming Vemuri, MIT confirmed that she had been banned from Friday's events, after they said she delivered a speech a day earlier that was not the one provided to the school in advance of the event.
'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,' university spokesperson Kimberly Allen said in a statement. '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.'
Vemuri's speech quickly attracted criticism, including from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called it 'Ignorant. Hateful. Morally bankrupt,' in a post on X.
'Where is the shame — or appropriate response from the institution? Have your children avoid MIT & the Ivy League at all costs,' Johnson wrote.
An MIT spokesperson told CNN that despite not attending Friday's ceremony, Vemuri will still receive her degree.
'What I am dealing with right now is absolutely nothing compared to the people of Palestine, and I'd take on much more if it meant helping their cause,' Vemuri told CNN on Sunday.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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