Megha Vemuri, an Indian-American student of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), made news recently by delivering a pro-Palestinian message during the university’s commencement ceremony. While addressing a crowd of graduates, families, and faculty, she criticised the university’s ties to Israel, and called on fellow graduates to take a stand.

Wearing a red keffiyeh, a traditional scarf of Palestine, Vemuri said, “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. 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.”

Soon after, the institution barred Vemuri, president of class 2025, from her graduation commencement ceremony. She was scheduled to be the marshal at the ceremony. But MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles announced that even Vemuri’s family was banned from the college campus that day.

In an email to Vemuri, Chancellor Nobles said, “You deliberately and repeatedly misled Commencement organisers. While we acknowledge your right to free expression, 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.”

The student leader, during her speech, had asked the new graduates in the audience to turn their MIT class rings, making the emblem face outward to assert their stand. “We carry with us the obligation to do everything we can to stop it. MIT is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” Vemuri had said. – editor@nrifocus.com