‘MIT wants a free Palestine’: Indian-American student Megha Vemuri started on Israel’s ‘massacre’

On Thursday, at a politically charged ceremony, 2025 President Megha Vemuri’s MIT class, an Indian-American student, used his platform to give a bold supporter-Filistini message, rapidly criticized the university relations for Israel and called fellow graduates to get a stand.A red kefheh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, Vemuri, while addressing a crowd of graduates, families and faculty, said, “You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine.”His comments were made for defense and research institutes associated with conflict between the unrest of the nationwide campus on war in Gaza and American University. In his speech, Vemuri accepted the intense pressures faced by the academia and student activists.“It is no secret that at this time, educational institutions across the country are immersed in a black cloud of uncertainty,” he said. “There is a lot of fear in many of our hearts.”Vemuri pointed to MIT’s research relationship with the Israeli army as a source of shame and moral conflict for the institution. “Israeli business force is the only foreign army with research relations with MIT,” he said. “This means that Israel’s attack on Palestinian people is aid not only by our country, but by our school.”He said that both MIT graduate bodies and its graduate student union in recent months, “The massacre voted heavy to cut relations with the Israeli army.”He said, “You faced dangers, threats and repression coming from all directions, especially your own university officials, but you reinforced,” he described it as a graduate. “Because the MIT community which I know will never tolerate a massacre.”Referring to the destruction of higher education infrastructure in Gaza, Vemuri said: “There are no universities left in Gaza. We are seeing that Israel is trying to wipe Palestine from the Earth’s face, and it is a shame that MIT is a part of it. ,The student leader concluded his address with a symbolic gesture, in which graduates were asked to turn on their MIT class rings so that the symbol faced out – a tradition that symbolizes their move in a wider world. But his message was indicated.“We take with us that we can do everything to stop it,” he said. “MIT Palestinian is directly entangled in the ongoing massacre.”