MIT was suspended, Harvard protesters were barred from graduation and expelled

But even though the suspension has upended his family’s life, Zeno said he remains “completely and unreservedly” loyal to the student-led effort to force MIT to cut research contracts with Israel’s Defense Ministry amid the brutal war.

“The risk we are taking is nothing compared to what the Palestinians in Gaza are going through,” Zeno said. “Children are being deliberately starved as a military strategy. This is an extremely urgent situation.”

Zeno, who helped organize MIT’s Scientists Against Genocide camp on April 21, said he was horrified by the daily images livestreamed from Gaza and was on “a deeply spiritual journey.” to speak out against injustice.

Some suspended students will not graduate as planned, others have lost income due to the cancellation of their scholarships, and some have had their research projects halted. Still, they vowed to continue the fight despite discipline and arrests.

Protests have erupted at universities across the country since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people and taken about 250 hostages, triggering a massive Israeli assault on Gaza. More than 34,000 people have died According to local health authorities, two-thirds of these are women and children in Gaza.

Universities are cracking down on the camps with disciplinary measures against students and arrests.

On Wednesday, two days after MIT warned protesters that they would face disciplinary action if they did not leave the Kresge Lawn encampment, administrators sent a flood of suspension notices to some of the participants. A spokesman would not say how many students were suspended, but protest organizers said there were at least two dozen.

Safiyyah Ogundipe, a chemical engineer at MIT and an organizer of the camp, said she received an email on Wednesday informing her of her suspension. At the end of the month, she is prohibited from taking final exams or walking with her graduating class. She is also threatened with eviction from her student accommodation from Wednesday.

“My family isn’t too happy about it — that’s an understatement,” said Ogundipe, 21, of Virginia.

“It feels really strange to be at the end and not feel like I’ve gotten over the finish line,” she said during an interview Thursday. “But I think we’ll find a way out.”

She remained confident that MIT’s disciplinary committee would overturn her suspension after a hearing, paving the way for her graduation. “I just have to take it one day at a time.”

Although her academic future is uncertain, Ogundipe said her involvement with the pro-Palestinian protest movement is not.

“This was one of the most turbulent years I spent at MIT, but also the most rewarding,” she said.

Early Friday, police broke up the MIT camp and arrested 10 students, including Ogundipe, That makes MIT the third Boston-area college — after Emerson College and Northeastern University — where protesters have been forcibly removed from encampments and charged, mostly with trespassing.

Although Zeno was not among the MIT students arrested Friday, he was arrested two weeks ago outside Emerson as police cleared that school’s encampment from a public alley and arrested more than 100 people for hours of community service.

Zeno said he believes the disciplinary actions taken by the school are likely to be more serious to people than an arrest. But the protesting students care deeply about the fight, which he compared to the student anti-Vietnam protests and anti-apartheid movements decades ago.

On Friday, Harvard University, home to the last pro-Palestinian camp in the Boston area, began suspending protesters who refused to leave the area with the makeshift tents. Those suspended have been told they will not be able to sit for exams or attend back-to-school or other school activities and will be evicted from student housing.

Kojo Acheampong, a Harvard sophomore studying computer science and organizing the school’s camp, was among those suspended.

“Of course there is a moment of shock. It’s like, ‘Oh, it’s actually happening.’ When you call your family members, they go crazy,” Acheampong said. But as an organizer, he expected to be targeted and have to make sacrifices.

“It fits into a legacy that I’m proud of,” Acheampong said. “I am proud of the history of the organizers who fought against South Africa, Vietnam and the true liberation of all people. So this kind of oppression means we’re doing our job.”

Suspension from Harvard means that “you’re basically kicked out and you can’t go back to the court or any buildings or anything like that until after the suspension,” Acheampong said. He said he was told to leave campus by noon Saturday.

He said he was “lucky” because he completed his final exams before being suspended, but his parents were upset with both him and the university and questioned what impact the suspension might have on his future.

“I take seriously the fact that I am an organizer and I take seriously the fact that this comes with certain sacrifices that have to be made for the movement,” Acheampong said. “I mentally prepared myself for what could happen. And that’s what fulfills me. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

As for the possibility that he could be arrested, Acheampong said: “I’m really not worried because I know we are on the right side of history.”

Globe correspondent Ava Berger contributed to this report.

Shelley Murphy can be reached at [email protected]. follow her @shelleymurph. Alexa Coultoff can be reached at [email protected]. follow her @alexacoultoff. Madeline Khaw can be reached at [email protected]. follow her @maddiekhaw.