On the very same day in which
Harvard’s president received a standing ovation during the university’s
graduation ceremony in Harvard Yard and emphasized verbally that students from
all around the world come to Harvard to study—U.S. President Trump having
recently ordered Harvard’s international students either to transfer from
Harvard or be sent home—MIT’s president barred the 2025 class president from
attending her graduation ceremony on the next day because of her speech
denouncing Israel’s decimation of Gaza in violation of international
human-rights law. Whether extermination or genocide, that the International
Criminal Court (ICC) had issued arrest warrants for Israel’s sitting prime minister
and a former defense minister should be enough for MIT’s senior officials to recognize
that speaking on behalf of human rights and against mass carnage and
intentional starvation is laudatory rather than horrendous. Even with the political
pressure that must have been coming the federal president, it was possible to
resist such pressure, which is why Harvard’s graduates gave the president of
Harvard a standing ovation of support. Sometimes international affairs really
are simple. Opposing Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza is not only morally
good; doing so is a duty. After all (but sadly not after all), Israel’s
military actions over 1.5 years had already resulted in whole cities being
leveled and 1.2 million residents facing starvation. The policy of U.S.
Government and the money of the American military-industrial companies, both of
which were still aiding Israel’s military, was also ripe for moral criticism. In
effect, MIT’s “academic” officials felt justified in taking the draconian step
of barring the graduating-class student-president from the campus on the day of
graduation because she had spoken out for human rights. There surely are
tough decisions in life given how subjective and even multivariate human
judgment is, but condemning and even bypassing MIT in the wake of that
institution’s highest officials barring the student from even receiving her
diploma in the graduation ceremony even though her family had come to see it is
not a difficult decision to reach. While dwarfed by the coldness of Israeli
soldiers in Gaza, “heartless” is not an adjective that a university’s top
officials want applied to them or a university itself, especially in regard to
students on the cusp of being alumni with great earning, and thus donating,
potential.
The full essay is at "MIT: A University or a Government?"
