An Open Letter To The MIT Committee on Discipline
Despite the use of “student safety” as a justification, MIT’s administrative choices feel punitive rather than protective in nature
Ellie Montemayor–The Tech
Writer’s Note: Some portions of the actual COD statement have been edited or removed.
To the Committee on Discipline,
I am writing to contextualize my involvement in the Scientists Against Genocide encampment and to provide clarity regarding my actions during the week of May 6.
My primary motive for participating in the encampment was an acute sense of moral outrage; for eight months, the civilians of Gaza have faced ceaseless air strikes, manufactured famines, and endless slaughter. This comes in the context of decades of land grabs, surveillance, and movement restrictions. I came to MIT with vaguely-defined ambitions of “making the world a better place,” but I soon faced the reality that the institution I idolized builds tools that destroy the livelihoods of many. I am disheartened that MIT researchers undertake projects like “Autonomous Robotic Swarms” and “Planning and Sensing Algorithms for Underwater Persistent Monitoring” for the Israeli Ministry of Defense when such research is used to prop up an apartheid regime. “Academic freedom” is used to justify the continuance of these projects -- what about the academic freedom of scholars in Gaza, where every university has been bombed?
MIT’s acceptance of $11 million in research funding from the IDF since 2015 is disgraceful; the notion that I ought to sit quietly and ask politely for change seemed nonsensical. As a student, I have little power other than where I place my body; regardless, I am compelled to act in whatever ways I can, particularly given the urgency of the matter. People are dying as we write polite emails stuffed with academic jargon and insincere pleasantries.
The choice of an encampment as a form of protest was not arbitrary; the tents on Kresge Lawn served as a stark reminder of the 1.7 million people internally displaced in the Gaza Strip. The encampment’s visibility was purposeful; MIT should not be insulated from the happenings of the outside. If you are engineering projects that shape humanity’s future, you must bear witness to the state of the world.
I emphasize that my usual role in the encampment was ensuring the safety of my peers. I took on many marshaling shifts and I was trained in de-escalation tactics. I connected newcomers with friendly faces and needed resources, I consoled my friends as they faced ceaseless harassment, and I coordinated with community members to arrange for leftover food to be donated to local shelters. I have compiled job resources for student activists and volunteered with local mutual aid organizations because everyone should have what they need. Practicing values like community care is more important than merely professing them.
These actions stand in stark contrast to MIT’s administrative choices. Despite the use of “student safety” as a justification, many of these actions, particularly evictions, are clearly punitive rather than protective in nature. I struggle to understand how forcing students into homelessness promotes campus safety; moreover, these kinds of measures necessitate the student organizing they were intended to deter in the first place. If MIT will not protect its students, we must protect each other. Everyone needs a roof over their heads.
Cynthia Barnhart’s statement during a faculty meeting on May 17th analogizing interim suspensions issued for student protestors to those issued for sexual assault perpetrators is particularly troubling. Violations of bureaucratic rules do not nearly equate violations of others’ bodies, so this comparison is simply egregious. Moreover, this feels particularly distasteful given the harassment that myself and many female-presenting members of the encampment faced from pro-Israel counterprotestors. I’ve had people scream in my face that I deserve to be anally raped, that they’d like to use my long hair to choke me, that a trip to Gaza would “make me straight”. I disengage and I do not take these things personally, but I do not deny that these experiences were degrading and humiliating.
I despise MIT’s narrative of the encampment as a hostile environment -- to be honest, the reason I spent so much time there in the first place was the extraordinary support I received from the SAGE community. Local grandmothers delivered hot meals for us. When I spoke, people did not talk over me.
To be frank, most of the hostilities from my perspective came from counter demonstrators; I do not care about personal insults, but some actions reflected a disregard for human dignity that I find inexcusable, and the fact that MIT has not sanctioned any of these acts despite IDHR reports and administrative pleas boggles me. I include the following personal anecdote as an illustration.
During the beginning of the encampment, my peers and I created a memorial to the thirty-four thousand Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since October 7th. Each death was represented as a single tally mark; it took three days and many hands to make. This process was sombering, each tally mark a life as complex as yours or mine. Whether they are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, doctors, journalists, or students, they are casualities of a genocide so extensive that the loss of their life can only be represented as a small stripe of red paint.
On May 8, an undergraduate student defaced this memorial with an Israeli flag. Their group jeered, laughed, and filmed. A later communication from MIT only detailed the fact that someone put a red handprint on the Israeli flag that was over the memorial.
Whatever injustices we face as student activists pale in comparison to the atrocities inflicted daily on Gazan civilians. IDF soldiers have posted footage of themselves riding the bikes of children whose homes were destroyed in air strikes and posing with the underwear of Palestinian women. I have a friend whose entire neighborhood has been destroyed by air strikes. Scholars estimate that the death toll in Gaza could be up to 180,000 once indirect deaths (e.g. disease, malnutrition) are accounted for. Destruction on this scale should never be normalized.
“The principle that people should not kill other people is more important than notions of freedom to do any kind of research one might want to undertake.” -- MIT anti-Vietnam-war protestor, 04/22/1969.
I do not see myself as a radical nor my values as particularly controversial. During the Lobby 7 sit-in on May 6, I carried a sign with the phrase “All Children Are Our Children”. The screams and cries of terrified elementary schoolers ringing out into the night air before fading to silence should never be a scene of daily life. I believe that as scientists at one of the most powerful universities in the world, we must hold ourselves accountable for the impacts of our research, and that we are obligated to disrupt the construction of weapons of war.
The actions during the week of May 6 reflected these beliefs; stalled negotiations left us seeking other routes. Administrators rejected a proposal to apply the red-yellow-green-light system described in the 2020 Suri Report to research funding without providing a counter argument; escalation seemed necessary.
I understand that MIT has the full right to enforce its rules and policies; I do not entertain notions about being on “the right side of history”. This is not about me. Children in Gaza are missing limbs and mothers.
My peers are brilliant, insightful, and steadfast. I am honored to know them. They are fully capable of building a liberated world; I hope they have the courage.
Kate Pearce ‘27 studies urban planning and computer science and is a member of the MIT Coalition for Palestine. The views expressed in this letter are hers alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any MIT-affiliated organization.