The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has suspended an anti-Israel student group that has held unsanctioned demonstrations on campus in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
University president Sally Kornbluth said the group, MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, disrupted and endangered students.
In a video statement released on Tuesday, Kornbluth said that MIT Coalition Against Apartheid "once again conducted a demonstration on campus without going through the normal permission processes that apply to every student group at MIT."
As a result, she added the group will not be permitted to use MIT facilities or "organize any further protests or demonstrations anywhere on our campus" until the school's discipline committee "makes a formal determination" regarding its conduct.
"We have clear [and] reasonable time, place, and manner policies in place for good reason. The point of these policies is to make sure that members of the MIT community can work, learn, and do their work on campus without disruption," Kornbluth said. "We also need to keep the community safe, and we can't do that without enough advance notice to organize staff and police resources. That's why we have the rules."
The decision to suspend Coalition Against Apartheid was made after the group held a Monday evening "emergency speakout" protesting an Israel Defense Forces mission that led to the rescue of two Hamas-held hostages.
The unsanctioned demonstration, which coincided with an MIT-organized panel on antisemitism, saw Coalition Against Apartheid members accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing, according to a video obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.
In November, Jewish students at MIT said members of Coalition Against Apartheid physically prevented them from attending classes.
The MIT Israel Alliance said at the time that the protesters were ordered to leave four hours later, but only the Jewish students there to counterprotest did so.
Kornbluth said in a statement following the November incidents that students who defied the order to leave the lobby will be disciplined, but not barred from classes.
MIT
In her Tuesday video, noted The Washington Free Beacon, Kornbluth said the suspension of Coalition Against Apartheid "is not related to the content of their speech," adding that "there is a difference between what we can say—that is, what we have a right to say—and what we should say."
Kornbluth went on to urge MIT students to "express our views with a basic sense of respect and empathy for members of our community."
MIT, like other universities in the US, has come under fire for a spike in incidents of antisemitism on its campus in the wake of the war against Hamas.
Last month, a group of Jewish alumni of MIT launched a campaign to withhold donations until the administration cracks down more forcefully on manifestations of antisemitism on campus.
The campaign organizers, a group called MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance (MITJAA), are urging Jewish graduates and their allies to reduce their annual gift to their alma mater to a token $1.
Matt Handel, a founding member of MITJAA, said he drew inspiration from the resignations of Harvard President Claudine Gay and Penn President Elizabeth Magill over responses to antisemitism on their respective campuses.
Both Gay and Magill came under fire following their disastrous testimony at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism in December.
Kornbluth testified at the same hearing but has thus far emerged relatively unscathed, with MIT's governing board expressing its firm support for her.