Faced with the suspension, MIT protesters vow to maintain their camp

Student demonstrators at MIT vowed to continue protesting despite the threat of suspension, vocal opposition from counter-protesters and pressure from university leaders to end the demonstration.

Dozens of interim suspensions and referrals to the school’s disciplinary board are “in progress,” MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles said in a statement Tuesday. The administration had given protesters a deadline of 2:30 p.m. Monday to vacate the school or face disciplinary action.

Senior Safiyyah Ogundipe said she is determined to stay in the camp as long as possible, even at the risk of not completing her studies.

“It’s scary because it affects your future,” Ogundipe said. “But that is nothing compared to what we are fighting for, which is a better future for the people of Gaza. I think that’s all that really matters.”

Tori Bedford

GBH News

Students at the camp are demanding that MIT cut ties with the Israeli Defense Ministry and divest from companies that work with the Israeli military.

“This is just another form of protest, like a walkout or a rally or something,” Ogundipe said, “but it’s one of the first protests we’re doing at MIT that actually hits them and puts pressure on them.” it hurts.”

As of Tuesday, students at the camp told GBH News they had not received individual notifications of suspensions.

Alex, a seventh-year graduate student who asked to use his first name because he needed to protect his visa status, plans to graduate in August. He said he hoped the warnings were a “scare tactic” aimed at dismantling the camp without implementing the academic sanctions.

“They were hoping that the threat of suspension would have been enough to clear the camp,” he said. MIT and Cambridge police did not make any arrests to clear the camp, unlike recent raids at Emerson College, Northeastern and UMass Amherst.

Even if he doesn’t complete his doctoral dissertation, the culmination of nearly a decade of study, Alex said he’s not afraid to keep going.

“That’s more important to me than the degree,” he said.

Tori Bedford

Tori Bedford

An MIT professor, Sally Haslanger, suggested that the school used “interim suspensions” to expedite the school’s disciplinary process.

“They can’t expel students if they’re non-violent unless they could remove them for trespassing — and they don’t commit trespassing if they’re MIT students in good standing,” Haslinger said. “So they have to suspend them to demand that they be removed and arrested.

“The thought that they are going to suspend her and have these very serious, life-changing consequences without due process is very frightening to me,” she added.

Regardless of whether a complaint is filed with the school’s disciplinary committee, “the institution reserves the right to take such interim or permanent administrative action as it deems necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,” school policy states. MIT did not respond to questions about the specific measures taken for students in the camp.

About 75 to 100 students have been identified for possible suspension as a result of the protests, Haslinger said, citing information from the Alliance of Concerned Faculty, a group of professors who support the protesters.

In a statement on Monday, MIT President Sally Kornbluth raised concerns about student safety, citing “various actions involving people outside of MIT, including a number of rallies organized by people unrelated to MIT are connected”.

On Tuesday afternoon, a crowd of about 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters set up a DJ booth on the lawn next to the encampment and called for an end to the encampment. Organizers said they reserved the lawn to celebrate Yom Ha’Atzmaut, or Israel Day, a national holiday commemorating Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948.

Organizer and MIT postdoctoral fellow Dvir Harris invited people in the camp to attend the event while calling for an end to the protest.

“Hopefully the camp will be destroyed in the near future, that is our goal,” Harris said to the crowd of about 100 people. “In the meantime, everyone in the camp is welcome to celebrate with us, the State of Israel. Although their suspension is imminent, some of them are currently being suspended and expelled, but for now you can come and celebrate with us.”

Mihal Mizrahi, who traveled from Italy to visit a friend at MIT, spoke at the pro-Israel celebration about a man she knew who was kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas more than 200 days ago.

“It was really, really difficult,” she told GBH News. “We have no news about whether he is alive or dead.”

Mizrahi’s MIT friend, a Palestinian student who attended the camp, is on the other side of the issue. Mizrahi said the two both knew the man being held hostage, her former boss at a boarding school.

Mizrahi said it was “hard to hear” that MIT had suspended student protesters as punishment.

“I was very sad because although I disagree with the camp, I believe my friend has the right to speak out as long as he is peaceful,” she said, “which I know he does .”

Students at the pro-Palestinian camp invited faculty to a dinner and meeting Tuesday evening, while pro-Israel supporters nearby waved flags and blasted Israeli hip-hop from a loudspeaker.