MIT suspends pro-Palestinian protesters as tensions escalate

The local camps are part of a national protest movement against Israel’s war in Gaza. Protesters at MIT set up tents on Kresge Oval shortly after more than 100 protesters were arrested at Columbia University last month as New York police cleared an encampment there. Since then, more than 2,600 protesters have been arrested at 50 campuses, in scenes reminiscent of confrontations between police and anti-war student demonstrators during the Vietnam War.

Universities now find themselves in an ever-tightening bind, sandwiched between the ever-approaching dates of their graduation ceremonies — some of which are scheduled to take place on the same lawns now filled with tents — and encouraging students who have vowed not to graduate before they graduate to go demands are met. Among other things, they have called on their universities to call for a ceasefire in the war and to cut all ties with Israel, including investments, research funding or partnerships with companies doing business in Israel.

MIT protesters said they received the suspension notices via email on Wednesday. According to a statement posted online by a pro-Palestinian MIT group, the suspensions took effect immediately and will remain in effect until concluded, if not longer. Graduation is scheduled for the last week of May.

“You are also not permitted to live in your assigned dorm or use MIT dining halls. You must leave campus immediately,” said the notice, signed by two senior administrators.

Protesters said all of the suspended students – more than 25 in total – received similar letters. Among them was Safiyyah Ogundipe, a 21-year-old chemical engineering student. As a student living in on-campus housing, she was “effectively evicted,” she said.

The bans follow recently Attempts by the MIT government to increase pressure on protesters, including multiple threats that all students remaining in the camp would be disciplined. On Monday, MIT police surrounded the camp and prevented protesters from re-entering. But just a few hours later, protesters broke through the barricades set up by police and reoccupied the camp, where they have remained ever since. The power sources the camp used were shut off, organizers said.

An MIT spokesman said: “Dozens of interim suspensions and referrals to the disciplinary committee are in progress.”

The demonstrators see themselves as human rights activists who denounce a war with unjustified victims among the civilian population. According to Palestinian authorities, the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 34,000 people and leveled large swathes of the territory. More than a million people are now crowded together in Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip that Israel has begun to invade. The United Nations warns that famine will worsen if the war continues.

The students also say their universities are complicit. At MIT, protesters demanded that the school cut off all research ties with the Israeli government. “This is not a morally ambiguous issue,” said Quinn Perian, a sophomore who attended the camp and is a member of Jews for Ceasefire, an MIT group.

Critics of the protesters say the movement contains anti-Semitic and extremist elements that organizers are failing to adequately eradicate. At the MIT camp, demonstrators chanted in Arabic: “From water to water, from death to Zionism,” a slogan reminiscent of the Hamas charter and which many understand as a call for the violent destruction of Israel. Hamas led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year, which Israel said killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched its war in Gaza, declaring the goal was the destruction of Hamas.

On Wednesday, these heated arguments took place at MIT’s Kresge Oval.

Around 3 p.m., pro-Israel counter-protesters jumped over the camp’s fence, set up a large loudspeaker and danced to Israeli music. Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters cried.

“What they’re laughing and celebrating is the sheer, soulful massacre of tens of thousands of people,” said Kate Pearce, an MIT freshman who attended the camp.

As the counter-protesters tried to leave, pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked the path. “You can come out the same way you came in,” one protester said.

This scene took place amidst other ugly confrontations.

Two student protesters engaged in an argument with an Israeli professor on campus, their breasts inches apart.

“You’re childish,” one said the protester. “You’re not that tough. Stay away from me,” replied Professor Retsef Levi. Then an MIT police officer entered and gently pushed them apart.

In recent days, protesters had placed thousands of red markers on pieces of cardboard attached to the fence surrounding the camp. Each of them represents one of the dead in Gaza, protesters said. On Wednesday, pro-Israel counter-protesters draped Israeli and American flags over the box. Then people from the camp dipped their hands in red paint and left handprints on the Israeli flags.

Lior Alon, a postdoctoral researcher, objected. “People have violated our flag and you want us to stay calm,” he told pro-Palestinian protesters. “I swore by this flag. I served my country.”

Perian criticized Alon’s comments. “To go into the camp and where they draw a line that is like a flag is horrific,” they said.

Mati Yablon, a Jewish freshman, said he and others came to the camp to “show the presence” of Jews and Israelis on campus. He questioned whether the movement really sought peace. “The rhetoric that they have used is offensive and basically almost violent at times,” he said.

Levi, the professor, stood on the lawn and picked up a microphone that was connected to the counterprotesters’ loudspeaker.

“Shame on all of you,” he said. “You are a disgrace.”

Mike Damiano can be reached at [email protected]. Lila Hempel-Edgers can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @hempeledgers and on Instagram @lila_hempel_edgers. Ava Berger can be reached at [email protected]. follow her @Ava_Berger_.