Vemuri’s OneMIT Commencement speech draws mixed reactions within and beyond the Institute
The MIT administration barred Megha Vemuri ’25 from speaking at or attending the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony on May 30
At the OneMIT Commencement Ceremony on May 29, 2025, Class President Megha Vemuri denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza during her speech to the newly minted graduates of the Institute. Her words elicited both cheers and boos from the audience.
After asking her fellow graduates to “approach the future with intentionality and integrity” and acknowledging the “fear in many of our hearts,” Vemuri said, “MIT wants a free Palestine.” Like Vemuri, some of the graduates wore keffiyehs, a traditional Middle Eastern headscarf that has become associated with the pro-Palestinian movement. Others in the audience held Israeli or Palestinian flags as she spoke.
Vemuri cited MIT’s April 2024 undergraduate and graduate referenda calling for a permanent ceasefire. She condemned the Institute’s research connections with the Israeli military, characterizing them as “genocidal.”
When leading the tradition of turning the class ring, Vemuri said that her fellow graduates “carry with us the stamp of the MIT name, the same name that is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.” Several students and guests walked out.
President Kornbluth, who delivered her charge to the graduates immediately after Vemuri, was greeted by a mix of jeers and applause from the audience. She opened by saying, “At MIT, we value freedom of expression, but today is about the graduates.” After continued interruptions by members of the audience, she added, “There is a time and a place to express yourselves, and you will have many, many years to do it.” Kornbluth said, “At MIT, we allow a lot of room for disagreement… The friction of disagreement is a very effective way that we sharpen each other's thinking.”
Vemuri barred from attending undergraduate degree ceremony on May 30
The MIT administration barred Vemuri from attending the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony held on May 30. Traditionally, the Class President delivers remarks at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony. Grace Li ’25, Vice President of the Class of 2025, spoke instead.
In a statement to The Tech, Institute spokesperson Kimberly Allen emphasized that “MIT supports free expression.” According to Allen, the speech Vemuri provided in advance to MIT was different from the one she gave. Allen said that MIT’s decision was in response to Vemuri “deliberately and repeatedly misleading” organizers and “disrupting an important Institute ceremony” by “leading a protest” in her speech.
In the May 30 ceremony, Natalie Lorenz Anderson ’84, the president of MIT’s Alumni Association, led a second turning of the class ring, saying that this “sacred tradition” had been “overshadowed by some other activity.” A handful of students booed this do-over of Vemuri’s actions, and others appeared not to turn their rings. During Chancellor Melissa Nobles’ speech, several students chanted, “Let Megha walk.” Nobles paused, then responded, “I respect that you have a message to send, but this is not the time or place” to scattered applause.
According to a statement from Vemuri, she was restricted from campus until 4 pm on May 30. However, the MIT administration confirmed that she still received her undergraduate degree — according to The New York Times, by mail. She wrote in a general press release that she was not disappointed to be barred from the undergraduate ceremony but believed that MIT “massively overstepped” by restricting her with “no indication of any specific policy broken.”
Mixed reactions to Vemuri’s speech
Student, faculty, and alumni reactions to the speech and MIT’s decisions were mixed.
Emma Lee ’25 sat at the front of the audience during the OneMIT ceremony. She told The Tech that she was “so proud” of Vemuri, and was among those chanting “Let Megha walk” at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony. Lee said that some of her classmates were frightened or confused by chants by both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters at the OneMIT ceremony, but that during the rest of the day, she “surprisingly didn’t hear as much” about the speech. Overall, Lee said, “It was so incredible to see every human’s reaction.”
Liam Coy ’25 also attended both ceremonies. He commended Vemuri’s speech as “incredibly brave” and “more than fair.” Coy booed at Anderson’s second turning of the ring, which he believed to be “majorly bungled.” Although he believed that the chants at OneMIT during Kornbluth’s speech were “generally unsuccessful,” he found that “Let Megha walk” chants at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony “done well and well-merited.” He said that there was “no sense” in barring Vemuri from the ceremony, which he found “cruel.”
On the other hand, Vittal Thirumalai ’24 MEng ’25 found the speech “extremely disrespectful.” Stressing that he supports “the right to advocate any cause,” Thirumalai explained that a “shared milestone like Commencement should feel respectful and inclusive for everyone attending.” He said that if the administration’s expectations for Vemuri’s speech were made clear before the ceremony, then their response was fair.
At the OneMIT ceremony, Thirumalai chanted “Respect Graduation” in response to both sides of protesters. He shared a moment from his Undergraduate Degree Ceremony last year in which the crowd drowned out hecklers by chanting Kornbluth’s name. Thirumalai, who found this moment “powerful,” said that in contrast, he was “a bit disappointed” with the audience’s response at this year’s ceremony.
Laker Newhouse ’25 wrote, “students may have been angry or at best annoyed” with Vemuri for “bringing any politics into our shared tradition.” Newhouse said, “She had no reasonable expectation of leniency.”
Giuliana Cabrera Sanchez ’25 believes that the speech’s disruptive nature was “exactly the point.” She said, “Everyone wants peace and silence, but they never want to give the stage to those who want to stop war.” Cabrera Sanchez added that although she “also wanted a full and proper ceremony,” she believes that “history will understand what Megha did.”
Professor Retsef Levi from the Sloan School of Management did not attend the OneMIT ceremony, but he was approached by several concerned students and alumni after the event. He stated that while some of these students were Jewish or Israeli, others were not. Calling Vemuri’s address “hateful,” Levi emphasized his belief that MIT’s community should be “united around the passion of learning and doing research,” and that a “divisive” speech during graduation threatens this unity. He said that he would have taken issue with a similarly controversial Commencement speech from any viewpoint.
Levi also took issue with the administration’s vetting of and response to the speech, which he characterized as “naïve.” Referring to Vemuri’s leadership of Written Revolution, a publication banned from campus, Levi stated that MIT should have asked itself “whether a student with this record should be given the privilege” to give a speech at graduation. He believes that Kornbluth should have “called out” the speech more directly in her address.
Vemuri is not the only student to use their graduation speeches to address the Israel-Palestine conflict this year. In May, Logan Rozos spoke at a ceremony for New York University’s Gallatin School, during which he denounced the “atrocities currently happening in Palestine.” NYU withheld his diploma and apologized for the speech. At George Washington University, senior Cecilia Culver was banned from campus for criticizing the university’s ties to the Israeli government in her graduation speech.
In an X post on May 30, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson called Vemuri’s words “Ignorant. Hateful. Morally bankrupt.” Grouping MIT with Ivy League schools like Harvard and Columbia, which the Trump administration has repeatedly targeted over pro-Palestinian protests, Johnson wrote, “Have your children avoid” them at “all costs.”