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U.S.|M.I.T. Class President Barred From Graduation Ceremony After Pro-Palestinian Speech
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/us/mit-commencement.html
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According to the school, the student delivered a speech, which denounced M.I.T.’s ties to Israel, that had not been preapproved.
May 31, 2025, 9:11 p.m. ET
The 2025 class president of M.I.T. was barred from a graduation ceremony on Friday after delivering a pro-Palestinian speech during a commencement event the day before. The student, Megha Vemuri, is the latest to face discipline after using a graduation as a forum to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.
At a universitywide ceremony on Thursday at M.I.T.’s campus in Cambridge, Mass., Ms. Vemuri commended students who protested on behalf of Palestinians and denounced M.I.T.’s ties with Israel. The Boston Globe reported last year that based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, M.I.T. reported receiving $2.8 million in grants, gifts and contracts from Israeli entities between 2020 and 2024.
School officials confirmed that they later told Ms. Vemuri that she was prohibited from attending the undergraduate ceremony on Friday.
“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,” a school spokesperson said in a statement.
The school said that Ms. Vemuri, who grew up in Georgia, will receive her degree. Sarat Vemuri, her father, said that she was a double major, in computation and cognition and linguistics, and was told that she will receive her diploma by mail.
He otherwise referred questions to his daughter, who provided a statement saying that she was not disappointed to miss Friday’s ceremony.
