The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and its Massachusetts chapter (CAIR-MA) today condemned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for reportedly banning MIT class of 2025 president Megha Vemuri from attending her undergraduate graduation ceremonies because she delivered an anti-genocide speech critical of MIT’s collaboration with the Israeli military a day earlier.
SEE: Students disrupt MIT chancellor at graduation after class president banned for pro-Palestine speech
Vemuri was told that she and her family were barred from the campus on Friday, after her speech Thursday during the 2025 OneMIT Commencement Ceremony in which she said: “We are watching Israel try to wipe Palestine off the face of the Earth, and it’s a shame that MIT is a part of it.”
In a statement, CAIR-MA Executive Director Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, Esq. said:
“We condemn MIT for reportedly banning class president Megha Vemuri from walking alongside her classmates because she dared to deliver a powerful speech criticizing the university’s complicity in war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government.
“MIT officials should be ashamed of themselves for both helping enable the Israeli government’s genocide and for silencing their own students who speak up against those crimes against humanity.
“MIT must respect academic freedom and respect the voices of its students, not punish and intimidate those who speak out against genocide and in support of Palestinian humanity.”
CAIR said it stands in solidarity with the student community and all academic institutions resisting efforts to politicize and control free speech or university governance.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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