Thank you for having me here. My name is Talia Khan from Phoenix, Arizona. I am an
undergraduate alumna of MIT and a current graduate student at MIT. I am the daughter of a
Jewish mother and an Afghan Muslim father; I am the President of the MIT Israel Alliance,
and a proud Jewish student. I am here today because I can no longer tolerate the fact that
MIT has become overrun with toxic antisemitism.
MIT has been my home for the past 8 years. However, increasingly, I feel less and less
comfortable there. I feel abandoned by the administration, fearful of interaction with certain
members of the staff and faculty, and traumatized from the events of the past 5 months.
I have experienced first-hand incitement to violence and harassment of Jewish students at
MIT. Memories of hearing calls to “raise up your two fists and sacrifice everything for
Palestine,” cheers for “armed resistance,” and calls to “hold a knife to their throats,” echo in
my mind as I walk the halls of MIT. The famous Infinite Corridor, which once was a symbol
of infinite academic possibility, now reminds me and many students of the trauma we felt as
a mob called for the destruction of Israel and blocked the main entrance to this hallway,
eventually taking it over for over 12 hours.
As members of the prestigious MIT community, we pride ourselves on a commitment to
openness and academic excellence. However, recent incidents have highlighted a disturbing
trend of discrimination and prejudice against Jews on campus. What is happening is the
antithesis of intellectual openness and inquiry. MIT has been overtaken by mob rule that directly
threatens Jews on our campus. For example, we have been warned by other non-Jewish
students that members of the anti-Israel club have openly stated and believe that violence
against any Jew who supports Israel, including women and children, is acceptable. When
reported to President Kornbluth and senior MIT administration, this issue was acknowledged,
but never dealt with. Then, administrators pleaded ignorance when we reminded them that no
actions had been taken to address these horrifying messages of hate, saying that they either
forgot about it or missed the email. This is just one incident among hundreds that have made life
for Jewish students and faculty unbearable. What is happening at MIT is a scandal and we will
continue to call it out until leaders in our schools and in our government acknowledge it and do
something.
I did not come to MIT for graduate school to spend my days filing harassment reports,
comforting my Jewish peers, and answering media inquiries on antisemitism. I don’t want to
have to be here. I am a student, seeking to advance scientific research. Instead MIT is stealing
my time and destroying my academic experience by failing to do its job of protecting students
and creating a safe learning environment on campus. MIT is stealing our most precious years
from us – and we can never get them back. My time at MIT is supposed to be the most
memorable time of my life. It is, but for all the wrong reasons.
MIT also wasted the time of the faculty who took part on the faculty antisemitism advisory
committee. These scientific heavyweights, some of the greatest minds in America, spent their
days trying to convince our President Sally Kornbluth to listen to our pleas. They did this rather
than do the research they have become famous for in their respective fields. Indeed, these
faculty have grown so tired of being discounted and ignored by Kornbluth’s administration that
every single one resigned from the antisemitism advisory committee. Despite our tireless efforts
to work with the administration, antisemitic attitudes and behaviors persist, casting a dark
shadow over our campus.
The MIT administration seems only to listen to those faculty and members of the MIT
corporation who help them continue to gaslight Jewish students and faculty. We’ve been told we
are being overly dramatic and should just “go back to Israel” if we don’t feel safe studying here.
Meanwhile, students must attend their Urban Studies & Planning and Linguistics classes taught
by professors who have openly supported Hamas as martyrs, harassed individual Jewish
students online, and called for the destruction of the state of Israel. Members of the faculty, an
interfaith chaplain, and DEI administrators have been actively supporting the anti-Israel protests.
DEI administrators have diminished concerns about antisemitic blood libel by members of the
community, and publicly supported antisemitic conspiracy theories. Additionally, the current
disciplinary process has not deterred bad actors, and requires fearful students to identify
themselves to their harassers, leading to underreporting of antisemitic incidents.
It is not overly dramatic to ask that something be done when our very existence is under threat.
One of the most insidious aspects of antisemitism is its ability to manifest in subtle ways:
anti-Israel students have called on MIT to rid itself of anyone and anything affiliated with the IDF
– however, this includes every single Israeli student, faculty, and staff on campus. Anti-Israel
MIT students attacked the MIT-Israel internship office – accusing the Jewish staffers there of
genocide and attempting to enter their locked office doors and banging on their windows. Staff
inside these offices said they feared for their lives.
Immediately after the attacks on October 7th, an MIT-funded anti-Israel student group said that
the Massacre was justified as an act of resistance, held events on campus glorifying Hamas as
“martyrs”, used promotional materials distributed by designated terrorist organizations, and
invited guest speakers who called on them to attack the Hillel Jewish student center.
Coincidentally, the day of that particular talk, the MIT Hillel center was attacked by a man who
forced entry into the building, urinated on the building and exposed himself to Jewish students,
verbally harassed them, and accused them of being part of mossad.
In line with its failure to act in other areas, MIT has repeatedly violated the First Amendment
rights of Israel supporters on campus. Six days after I and others put up Israeli flags and
banners that say “No Excuse for Terror” and “We Stand with Israel” in our personal, on campus
offices to show solidarity with Israel in the wake of the October 7th attacks, the MIT
administration created an anti-flag and banner rule. This rule has almost exclusively been
enforced to take down Israeli flags; though we have filed several reports of Palestinian flags
around campus in other personal offices and laboratories, no action has been taken, and these
flags, along with flags of many other nationalities except Israel, remain. MIT is failing to equally
enforce its own rules, and, in doing so, is violating the free speech rights of its students. This is
not just a threat to us as Jewish students, it is a threat to who we are as Americans.
We must recognize that even these seemingly innocuous actions can have a profound impact
on those targeted by discrimination. Every act of antisemitism, both overt and covert,
contributes to a climate of fear and alienation for Jewish students, faculty, and staff.
Antisemitism is a threat to the very fabric of our community. When individuals are targeted in
study groups and marginalized in departmental lounges because of their religious or ethnic
identity, it undermines our collective pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It leads to popular
lecturers, like Mauricio Karchmer, no longer feeling comfortable teaching at MIT, because the
MIT administration has done nothing tangible to address or combat antisemitism on campus.
MIT lets antisemitism fester and grow, while Jews are forced to decide – can I stay here one
more day? Can I survive one more day of this neverending trauma? For Professor Karchmer
and several Israeli students, the answer was no. Currently, there is a Jewish brain drain
occurring at MIT.
As members of the MIT community, it is our responsibility to confront antisemitism wherever we
encounter it. We must speak out against hateful rhetoric, challenge discriminatory behavior, and
refuse to accept lip service from an impotent administration. Additionally, we must take proactive
steps to educate ourselves and others about the history and impact of antisemitism, fostering a
culture of awareness and empathy on our campus. But it should not be merely up to students
and faculty. Legislators on the state and federal level have a duty to act. US Government
funding is meant to enable these schools to spread knowledge. Instead, MIT is fostering an
anti-intellectual environment, fomenting hatred and harassment toward Jews and Israelis. Now
is the time to act to make sure federal dollars are not being used to instead spread hate and
discourage Jewish academics.
I am the child of an Afghan Muslim immigrant and Ashkenazi Jewish Ohioan. But most
importantly, I am an American. I am the embodiment of America’s promise of freedom for all
people, no matter who they are or what they believe. And I am entitled to an educational
experience free from threats and marginalization because of who I am. Particularly at an
institution that receives federal funds. I believe in MIT and in its mission "to advance knowledge
and educate students in science and technology", but it has strayed too far, and we need your
help to get it back on track. I call upon Congress and our institutions to take clear steps to
protect every student at MIT, including Jews. For America to maintain its status as the most
innovative country in the world, we must ensure safety for all in our leading academic
institutions, like MIT. Losing great minds at MIT to antisemitism is a national security threat, and
everyone on and off campus should be concerned.
Below you will find a composite synthesis of the life of Jewish students on MIT’s campus,
followed by a detailed timeline of antisemitic events on campus.
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February 26, 2024
“My closest scientific colleague wouldn’t say hello to
me anymore, just looked right through me, like air.”
“My adviser was afraid to set foot on campus for weeks
after protesters accused him, personally, of genocide.”
“A non-Jewish friend told me he has heard students say
Jews ‘deserve’ violence, so he worries for me.”
The following is a composite narrative of events on the MIT campus that we, a concerned group
of faculty at MIT, have witnessed directly over the past four months or learned of indirectly
through numerous discussions with students and postdocs. Detailed views of the current situation
can vary greatly—“two Jews, three opinions”—but what stands out from students' descriptions,
in particular, are recurring words such as: Ostracized. Marginalized. Dehumanized. Unsupported.
Unwelcome. Afraid. Alone.
As you read this narrative, you may question the interpretation of events, and you may even
believe that Jewish and Israeli individuals have at times overreacted. But we hope that you will
take seriously this attempt to convey, as candidly as possible, the experiences of a small
community—numbering only about one in twenty at MIT—that continues to pay the price for an
explosion of angry activism that erupted after October 7th, and that has focused its attention not
on ameliorating the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East but on harassing a small and vulnerable
community here at home.
While focusing on the impact of campus activism groups like the CAA (with the majority of its
members not having direct ties to Israel/Gaza), we extend our deepest empathy to MIT’s
Palestinian community and anyone else at MIT directly connected to the region. The purpose of
our message is to foster understanding and support without detracting from the profound
experiences of those directly impacted by the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Our discussions with members of the MIT community surfaced heart-breaking stories of
exclusion and marginalization of different groups, including Muslims and Arabs, as well as
Asians and others. We thus believe the time has come for faculty to develop a comprehensive
plan to allow MIT to return to its core mission, while fulfilling the MIT Values Statement “to
make our community a humane and welcoming place where people from a diverse range of
backgrounds can grow and thrive – and where we all feel that we belong.”
Oct. 7 — Pure horror in the news from Israel: the family WhatsApp group pings non-stop with
new and unbearable details. Your cousin is dead, shot in his house. It feels surreal: for most of
the people around you here in Cambridge, it’s a normal day. If they’ve even heard the news, it’s
distant. For you, it’s tears, it’s beautiful young friends slaughtered, it’s echoes of the centuries of
Jew-killing you learned about as a child, generational trauma. You feel alone as a Jew,
surrounded by your MIT supervisors who don’t reach out.
2
Oct. 8 — You wake up to a text from a classmate. One of his childhood friends was killed at the
Nova festival, another is still missing. Later, the MIT “Coalition Against Apartheid” (CAA)
sends an email to the entire undergraduate population blaming “all unfolding violence”
(referring to Hamas's massacre of Israeli civilians) on the “settler colonial regime” (i.e. on Israel)
and inviting everyone to a “Victory is Ours” rally the next day. A handful of other MIT groups
sign on. Images spread by your classmates, on Dormspam
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and social media, glorify Hamas
attackers. A few days later, members of your study group tell you the young people killed at the
Nova music festival deserved it because “they were partying on stolen land.” You quit the group.
Oct. 13 — A “global day of Jihad” is announced, raising fear with Jewish communities around
the world. At MIT, the CAA are participating by organizing a large protest.
Oct. 19 — You are still dealing with the loss and the horror. The campus is increasingly unquiet.
At a CAA rally students from your dorm, who you thought are your friends, are chanting “One
Solution: Intifada Revolution” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” You know
of the second Intifada, and its suicide bombings in the streets of Israel. “Globalize the intifada”
is a call for similar rebelion around the world, implying Jews and Israelis should be hurt here,
and in Israel. When they shout “From the river to the sea”, for you it is a call to eliminate the
only jewish state. You look at your Star of David pendant and take it off in fear. Then you put it
back on, in defiance.
Dormspam messages calling for more protests against Israel and the “Zionists” continue to incite
your peers. A non-Jewish friend of yours shares her experience of being bullied just for having
Jewish friends; not being allowed into a party if she does not denounce Israel. You can’t believe
this is happening here at MIT. The floor where you live, which once felt like home, feels more
like a hostile, threatening territory.
Oct. 23 — A protester disrupts your 18.06 class, waving a Palestinian flag and accusing MIT,
Israel, and the U.S. of “genocide”. The lecturer does not reprimand or stop him. You hear from
others that their classes were also disrupted or postered, and hear nothing about consequences for
those who are perpetrating it. In fact, many seem blind to how you are being dehumanized and
socially shunned on campus. They say it’s just good old 1960s-style civil disobedience, ignoring
the fact that MIT student groups are legitimizing terror attacks against your loved ones.
Nov. 2 — CAA members with a bullhorn and a drum roam through campus shouting anti-Israel
slogans. The protesters barge into the President's office, but find it empty. They then invade the
MISTI-Israel office suite, where they harass the staff, some of whom fearfully lock themselves
inside their offices. They are escorted by the MIT police, who appear to do nothing to enforce
MIT rules. The group vociferously chants outside one person’s office that he is personally guilty
of “genocide” – that person won’t return to campus for several weeks. If any of these protesters
1
Dormspam: An unmoderated mailing list that allows any MIT student to email the entire undergraduate student body. Normally used for events /
activity announcements as a key communication tool for students. Since Oct. 7th it has also become a tool to demonize Jews and even attack
individual students.
3
were penalized, you never hear about it. The message feels clear: Israelis and Jews can be
harassed at MIT with impunity.
Nov. 7 – You are hearing of more social shunning incidents. You consider reporting to the IDHR
and DEI staff, but are warned by others that they are “not your allies”. Those who appealed to
them previously, report getting nowhere with these campus resources; one even told a Jewish
American student “you are not a protected class”; it is later revealed that DEI officers received
no formal training in antisemitism or anti-Israel bigotry. One DEI officer even helped organize
CAA rallies and openly endorsed statements justifying Hamas’s terror attack, with no apparent
consequences. Another DEIJ
2
officer asserted that a blood libel conspiracy about “Zionists”
harvesting the organs of Palestinians was based on “confirmed reports.” Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion, isn’t meant to include Jews, you’re later told.
Nov. 8 — On social media, word spreads of an impending CAA blockade of Lobby 7, a major
thoroughfare through campus. Over 100 faculty signed a letter entreating MIT’s administration
to enforce its long-standing rules, but it seems the protesters plan to flout these rules. You are
told that in an evening meeting, the administration asked Jewish student leaders to refrain from
counter-protesting. They promise there will be consequences for rule-breakers this time, but
you’re not sure you believe them.
Nov. 9 — The protesters carry out their plans to blockade Lobby 7. Messages on social groups
warn Jewish students like yourself to avoid the area. You stop by anyway to witness what is
happening. When you get there, you find that the protesters’ presence is loud and intimidating,
coercing passers-by to seek alternative routes to the ‘Infinite Corridor’, a main artery for you to
get to class. The side routes are surrounded by hateful protest signs, and it feels as though
someone is trying to incite the whole campus against you. A loudspeaker is playing music and
droning anti-Israeli chants. After years of diversity training on non-physical ‘violence’, you
wonder if MIT is completely blind to what is happening, or perhaps they simply do not care?
A pro-Israel counter-protest starts. One student sets up a small impromptu desk and quietly
studies the Talmud. Others are more active, wearing Israeli flags and showcasing photos of the
October 7th hostages and massacre victims. They also chant into a speaker, calling out against
Hamas, and explicitly not against Palestinians or against Gaza. Pleading for other people to
understand that they, too, pray for the liberation of the people of Gaza - from Hamas’s grip of
terror. As time goes on, the event becomes more charged. Counter-protestors are continually
blocked and heckled, as they push to move straight towards the Infinite Corridor. Roughly two
more hours go by with no visible action being taken by the administration, despite their claims
from last night. The situation starts escalating, the groups are at each other’s faces, ripping signs.
You fear it will get out of hand. The police seem under-equipped to keep the two groups apart.
You get scared and decide to leave the area.
2
DEIJ = Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. Some MIT departments have DEIJ officers, as opposed to DEI officers.
4
Later you hear that MIT issued a written warning of suspension to anyone who does not leave
within 15 minutes. Jewish students leave immediately. The CAA protesters chose to remain
onsite well into the night hours, recruiting off-campus protesters to join them through social
media. Videos circulate, “proudly” showing dozens of unaffiliated protesters arriving straight
from a violent protest in Boston. They glorify Hamas terror as ‘resistance’ and call for an
intifada. You receive messages from Hillel and the MIT Police to avoid Lobby 7 “for your own
safety”. You run back to your dorm room and lock the door in fear. How could you ever focus on
class after that? Lobby 7 was occupied by the CAA for 12 hours.
Nov. 10 — You wake up to social media posts and Dormspam messages claiming the CAA
protest was “non-violent and peaceful,” though you observed otherwise. Carefully edited videos
show counter-protesters confronting and once even pushing through the protesters who blocked
the entrance. They bring a new spate of anti-Israel hate on campus. Even some faculty say the
only problem with the protest was the counter-protest.
Nov. 11 — Instead of full academic suspensions, as stated by MIT administrators during the
protest, the protesters merely get a slap on the wrist: suspension from non-academic campus
activities. It is explained that this change was done to protect the visa status of international
students who knowingly violated the rules. To you, the Institute is feeling out of control.
Nov. 12 — An even larger group of protesters, most visibly unaffiliated with MIT, march across
the Mass. Ave. bridge and gather at the Institute’s main entrance. A CAA speaker taunts the MIT
administration for its perceived weakness. Once again, the police are present but don’t add to any
feeling of security. It’s hard to concentrate. A kind professor gives you a small pepper spray
canister for your safety, just in case. Your grandfather, who survived the ethnic cleansing of Jews
in Iraq in June 1941, calls saying he fears for your safety. “This is how it always starts,” he says.
Nov. 13 - A low point for our community. We finally received an awaited response from
President Kornbluth about our letter (later signed by 1700 students and alums). While she admits
that she abhors the recent rise in antisemitism, the president would not adopt the IHRA definition
of antisemitism (the official working definition endorsed by Massachusetts), or accept any of our
requests. Shockingly, she appears to minimize us and our experiences, asking us to stop
spreading rumors. On the same day you learn that an $800 bounty is posted online asking to
identify your friend, an Israeli student from the counterprotest. Later, an anonymous post reveals
his name, stating: “Zionism and Israel are the scourge of humanity. His head should be crushed
wherever you find him.” The student goes into hiding. The vile threat stokes fear in you and
many of your friends.
This day makes you wonder at what point MIT would be recognized as a hostile environment for
Jews. How many unauthorized, unchecked, inciting rallies would it take for someone in
leadership to take action? You support free speech, but the steady drumbeat of words and images
vilifying Israelis and Jews seem like harassment to you; why are the norms of protecting other
minority groups not being applied to yours?
5
Nov. 14 – The administration announces a new campus-wide initiative called Standing Together
Against Hate (STAH). It promises to convene a special group to “spearhead efforts to fight
antisemitism,” declaring it a priority for MIT, and promising to soon name its leaders.
Retrospectively, the antisemitism group was never formed.
Nov. 16 - A non-Jewish friend of yours attends a campus event on “Planetary Health: Indigenous
Land, Peoples and Bodies,” led by an interfaith chaplain who is an MIT employee. The event
ended up being riddled with antisemitic remarks. The chaplain continuously brought up the
conflict out of context, stating that Palestinians are being “wrongfully subjugated and oppressed
by racist white European colonizers.” Later, the chaplain asks participants to raise their hand if
they keep kosher. You are appalled that Jewish students are being asked to identify this way in
such a hostile event.
Dec. 5 — The world watches as at a congressional hearing on antisemitism, President Kornbluth
declines to affirm unambiguously that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate campus
rules at MIT. Her overall testimony didn’t seem as bad as that of the Presidents of both Harvard
and Penn. She talked about “what you can say” versus “what you should say.” But then never
publicly admonishes anything by taking a strong moral stance and saying “this statement might
be allowed, but is not representative of MIT values”. You’re envious of the position taken by
Yale University, where the president said he’d call the police on someone urging the mass
murder of Jews, as well as Brown University, which disbanded an illegal protest by threatening,
and later following through with trespassing arrests of student perpetrators.
Dec. 6 — A man harasses people at the Hillel building and urinates on it. Conspiracy theories
about Jews are spreading. A day later, in a faculty newsletter, a linguistics professor thanks the
CAA protesters for their “courage and moral clarity.” He also endorses a tweet saying Israel’s
“crimes dwarf those of Hamas.” You mourn the deaths in Gaza and feel blamed for everything
that is happening. That’s how every Israeli and most Jews you know feel: We’re being personally
blamed for a hellish war against a terror organization when all we ever wanted was peace.
Dec. 13 — Popular algorithms lecturer Mauricio Karchmer resigns. He writes publicly about
how MIT has been failing its students, Jews and non-Jews alike, to the point that he could no
longer stay. In mid-November, he writes, one of his Israeli PhD students decided to take a few
weeks off “because he needed to escape the toxicity of MIT’s campus.” You know how that
student felt. Friends and relatives in Israel fear for you and have been sending you sympathy:
they’re in a country at war, but at least they’re all in it together.
Dec. 21 — The CAA offers support for Yemeni Houthi terrorists in a post denouncing the US
retaliation following the Houthi's terror attacks on civilian ships – the same organization whose
slogan is: “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews,
Victory to Islam.” This is an alarming escalation of the “resistance is justified by all means
possible” chants–a direct call for violence against Israelis–that have become widespread and
normalized on campus. MIT’s silence is deafening.
6
Dec. 22 — Exams end and you enter a period of reflection: Was it a huge mistake to come to
MIT? Should you stay? You hear other Israelis and American Jews asking the same question,
and even starting to apply elsewhere. You could go to the Technion or to another US campus that
does more to support Jews. Some university leaders, like Ben Sasse, president of the University
of Florida, stood up against this from Day 1. Other campuses, like Dartmouth, quickly launched
superb educational programs about the Middle East. Here, the STAH program did not even
follow up on its promise to fight antisemitism.
Jan. 11 — You receive an email asking you to complete a new online harassment training. As
you work through it you learn that MIT considers ‘deadnaming’
3
(using a transgender person's
former name) to be a violent act. You recall last month’s congressional testimony; it seems that
only when Jews are harassed it suddenly “depends on the context”.
Jan. 24 — The STAH Spring lectures program is published. It includes a talk on free speech, one
talk each on antisemitism and Islamophobia, and a talk about anti-Palestinian racism. Nothing
about the central problems you are facing on campus: anti-Israeli bigotry or demonization of
Zionism. You wonder if MIT feels it is OK to hate someone just for being Israeli? Or simply for
supporting the existence of a Jewish state? To make things worse, the speaker on Islamophobia is
an activist who claimed Israel does not believe women’s reports of sexual assault, attempting to
downplay the large-scale sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Jewish
student groups are openly appalled by the invitation. One member comments: “What I
understand from this is that hate against Israel is OK at MIT and will not be addressed by
Standing Together Against Hate.”
Jan. 31 — You return from winter break amid rumors running on social media and some news
websites that the CAA promises to ramp up its activity again. The administration puts out a
reminder of all the rules for expression on campus. You hope that will help, but you’re dubious.
Feb. 12 — The first STAH talk is about to start and you urge yourself to give it a chance. As the
talk starts, Dormspam messages arrive calling for an illegal CAA protest outside the student
center. You leave the talk early to see what’s going on. The students say “there can be no f-ing
dialogue across difference”, and continue to promote horrific rhetoric against Israel, vilifying
Israelis, and Zionists. They then move to Lobby 7, occupying it, again. This time without any
counter-protest from Jewish or Israeli groups. The MIT administration is present watching the
disruption, but does nothing to stop it.
Later you get videos of dozens of your fellow students shouting “Hear us loud, hear us clear,
IOF not welcome here”. IOF is a pernicious reference to the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). It
reminds you of Mohammed El Kurd, a CAA invited speaker to MIT, calling for attacks on Israeli
veterans on campus. You’re terrified by this escalation in rhetoric and its clear implication: that
any Israeli who served in the military is a fair target. Israel has mandatory military service since
the country’s founding and most Israelis on campus have served. It seems that the CAA and their
3
Deadnaming: calling a transgender, or gender non-conforming, person by their old name, instead of the new name they chose to adopt.
7
supporters want a blanket ban on Israelis at MIT, and for all Israelis at MIT to know they are not
welcome.
Feb. 13 — President Kornbluth issues a statement in response to yesterday’s events. It condemns
the CAA’s defiance of MIT rules and use of anti-Israeli rhetoric, while also statesing: “Equally,
we shouldn’t feel it’s OK to vilify everyone who advocates for the Palestinian people as
“supporting Hamas”.” That statement, made in this context, is intensely hurtful to you. Not
only that you never heard anyone of your Jewish peers saying that on campus, this time there
wasn’t any counter protest; we have all been keeping our heads down since November. You
wonder if they really don’t understand how damaging and distressing this parallelism is.
At least, after more than four months, the President finally openly recognized anti-Israeli bigotry
on campus. The CAA are temporarily banned as a campus club. You know this is mostly a
declarative statement, since the CAA leadership can enact their antics under different groups. In
fact, they have already set up several clubs to operate through. But you still appreciate the
message that repeated targeting of Israelis and Jews on campus will not be tolerated.
You wonder about the more than 80 students who participated in the protest and explicitly
violated MIT’s policies, assuming they would be referred to the Committee on Discipline (CoD).
But your expectations are again debased. Instead, you learn on Dormspam that the vast majority
will face no consequences at all. Only members of the CAA executive board will be referred to
the CoD, with an interim action that prevents them from formally holding leadership positions
within other student clubs. This seems even more toothless than the interim action they faced due
to the Fall term Lobby 7 blockade, i.e., ‘suspension from non-academic activities’ that MIT
placed and did not enforce.
Feb. 18 — Some friends seem to think the latest action by the MIT administration is vindication
for all you’ve been going through, but you feel no relief. Campus morale is at an all-time low.
You resign to admitting that students are not being held accountable for their misdeeds, so
they’re completely undeterred. Indeed, less than a week later the CAA ‘crashed’ a formal MIT
MLK event, showing their defiance to MIT leadership, again.
It feels like a low hum of antisemitism, vilification of Israelis and demonization of Zionism have
become fully normalized on campus. All you want is a return to a campus atmosphere where you
can feel proud to be Jewish and to be yourself, but MIT does not seem willing and able to
provide that. If that’s impossible, you can’t really see why Jews would want to stay at MIT, in
this environment. Given the immensely valuable contributions of Jewish and Israeli faculty and
students to MIT, and more generally to the sciences in the United States over the past century, it
would be tragic for such an exodus to occur.
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Detailed description of key events affecting the Jewish and
Israeli Community at MIT
February 26, 2024
This report documents the rise of antisemitism at MIT in the year that lead up to the October 7
attack, and the eruption of hostilities towards Jews and Israelis that ensued. The data collection
and recording was a collaborative effort among faculty, students, and staff, representing a broad
cross-section of the affected community.
This is not a fully comprehensive report. Events have been anonymized where possible.
However, several reports have been omitted to protect the identities of individuals within this
small community. For this same reason, witness accounts have only been selectively included.
We hope that in reading this document you can obtain an inside view into the experience of
Jewish and Israeli members of the MIT campus. We further acknowledge that other communities
at MIT are also affected by the current situation on campus. The Jewish and Israeli community,
as a whole, stands in solidarity with anyone experiencing personal pain and trauma. This report
is not meant to diminish the experiences of others.
While we are living through a national crisis, affecting many academic institutions, MIT has a
unique social fabric, and our experiences here have not mirrored those in other institutions. To
preserve this fabric and refocus the institute to its core mission, MITs faculty and its leadership
must work together. We hope that this report is a first step in helping the broad MIT community
to understand the challenges persisting on our campus, in order for us all to be able to heal MIT
together.
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Contents:
October 22nd, 2022: CAA, CIS, Anthropology and WGS Co-Host Mohammed El-Kurd 3
April 18th, 2023: Defacing Jewish Holocaust Commemoration Display 3
April 30th, 2023: Nazi Swastika Drawing on a Jewish Faculty Board 4
October 8th, 2023: CAA Justifies Hamas’s Oct 7th Massacre 4
October 10th, 2023: Chalking on MIT property 6
October 17th, 2023: Misinformation Spread 6
October 19th, 2023: Incitement and harassment calls at a CAA Rally 7
October 23, 2023: CAA Interrupts Classes to Spread its Propaganda 8
October 30, 2023: CAA “Die In” in Lobby 7 (Banned Protest Space) 9
November 2nd, 2023: CAA Disorderly Behavior at MISTI and the President’s office, Harassing
Staff and threatening Faculty 9
November 8th, 2023: Posted “Sally You Can’t Hide” on Social Media 9
November 8th, 2023: Faculty Letter, Rules Clarification and DSL Meeting 10
November 9th, 2023: Blockade Rally Out of Control 10
November 12th, 2023: Boston Rally Blocks Mass Ave 12
November 13th, 2023: Online bounty on Jewish student 13
November 14th, 2023: Announcement STAH initiative 13
November 14th, 2023: “Whatever means possible:” Safety Concerns Stoke Fear 13
November 15th, 2023: Recording the MIT Faculty Meeting 14
November 16th, 2023: Chaplain event incites hatred against jews 15
November 27th, 2023: DEI Issues Left Unaddressed 16
December 4th, 2023: Antisemitism is not the priority 18
December 6th, 2023: CAA Hosts Speaker Encouraging Targeting of Hillel 18
December 6th, 2023: Harassment of students at Hillel 19
December 7th, 2023: Holocaust desecration posters 19
December 13th, 2023: Karchmer Resignation 19
December 14th, 2023: Hockfield Rally Inciting Violence 20
December 21st, 2023: Support of Houthi Terror Attacks 21
January 24th, 2024: Standing Together Against Hate Program Publication 22
February 12th, 2024: Lobby 7 Takeover 22
Graduate Student Union involvement and support of the BDS 24
What is Dormspam? - A major source of distress for Jewish students 29
Sources corresponding to information detailed below are available here.
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October 22nd, 2022: CAA, CIS, Anthropology and WGS Co-Host Mohammed
El-Kurd
MIT’s Center for International Studies (CIS), Department of Anthropology, Women’s & Gender
Studies (WGS) department, and the CAA, co-hosted Mohammed El-Kurd. According to the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – the leading anti-hate organization in the world whose mission
is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all” –
El-Kurd “has accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians and of having a particular lust
for Palestinian blood. He has compared Israelis to Nazis, negated the historic Jewish connection
to the Land of Israel, and vilified Zionism and Zionists.”
Concerned students contacted both the CAA and MIT WGS about Mr. El-Kurd’s history of
spreading racist conspiracy theories about Jews, yet the event continued as planned.
Consequently, Mr. El-Kurd proceeded to make numerous fallacious and defamatory allegations
at the MIT event, asserting that students at MIT who served in the IDF had tied up and gassed
Palestinian children. He even said, “I hope every one of them [IDF veterans] dies in the most
torturous and slow ways,” although Israel holds a mandatory draft law (similar to many
European countries). In so doing, El-Kurd used his platform as an invited guest to humiliate and
incite hatred against specific students – Israeli students – without evidence, and express support
for violence against them on our campus.
This explicitly violates MIT harassment policy. In her congressional testimony, President
Konbluth testified that, according to MIT policy, if calling for the genocide of Jews is “targeted
at individuals” it can be considered harassment. Mr. El-Kurd’s incitement was unmistakably
targeted at specific individuals. He didn’t have to reveal their identities in public or provide proof
for his slanderous statements; to Mohmammed El-Kurd, violence against Israelis is noble.
We emphasize that while we defend our commitment to free speech on campus, including those
whose ideas we may find abhorrent, there must be a clear standard to disqualify the invitation of
speakers who promote harassment and advocate for violence against members of our community,
either personally or as an ethno-religious group.
An article published in The Tech raised a flag about this event and the future issues it will bring
to campus.
April 18th, 2023: Defacing Jewish Holocaust Commemoration Display
A display commemorating the Jewish Holocaust in Lobby 7 was marked with “Free Palestine”
slogans on Holocaust Remembrance Day. While the perpetrator of this act is unknown, the CAA
proudly promoted this action through their Instagram account.
Note: All “Stop antisemitism” and “Fight antisemitism” markings in the picture below were
added after the “Free Palestine” marking and possibly in response to it.
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April 30th, 2023: Nazi Swastika Drawing on a Jewish Faculty Board
The notorious Nazi symbol was drawn on a board belonging to the
research group of a Jewish faculty member, between two students’
offices. The PI’s name is listed on the doors and is identifiably
Jewish.
While MIT police were contacted and a complaint was filed with
them, the Jewish faculty member has not yet received an update nor
indication of follow-up actions.
October 8th, 2023: CAA Justifies Hamas’s Oct 7th Massacre
Statements providing unequivocal support, justification, and glorification of the massacre of
unarmed civilians committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7th were sent to the MIT student
body and publicized on associated social media platforms. Specifically, the CAA sent out an
email to all MIT undergrad dorms, put out a statement with the Palestine@MIT group, and
posted it on their social media accounts (Instagram, and X/Twitter) starting on October 7th and
the days immediately following. This was done when the gruesome extent of the massacre was
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already clear, yet well before any Israeli military response occurred and any innocent Gazans had
yet been caught in harm’s way.
These statements included (see examples below) "Victory is ours,” “...affirming the right of all
occupied peoples to resist,” “this resistance is 100% predictable and justified,” "Palestinians
cannot invade Palestine,” etc. The fact that this letter was published on October 7 and explicitly
references violence in the context of affirming a right to resistance makes it indisputably clear
that the letter aimed to provide support and justification for the October 7 massacre and the
taking of hostages. One of their posts on “the resistance rises” was signed by the “Samidoun”
organization, a known affiliate for the recognized terror organization “Liberation of Palestine”.
Additionally, the CAA called for supporters to attend the Cambridge rally that took place on Oct
9th that declared ‘victory’ in celebration of these heinous attacks. This was their joint statement
sent via email to the MIT community.
Selected Examples:
CAA posts on, and soon after, Oct. 7:
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October 10th, 2023: Chalking on MIT property
Students chalked "Free Palestine", "Resist the Oppression", and more anti-Israel slogans on the
steps of Lobby 7 and elsewhere on campus. (“From Hamas” statements were added by other
students in response). Again, these slogans on social media were posted right after the October
7th massacre, not before, thereby unambiguously sending a message that the massacre was in
their minds a justified form of resistance.
October 17th, 2023: Misinformation Spread
Following a news story that Israel had deliberately attacked a large hospital in Gaza killing 500
people, which later was retracted as erroneous, an email was sent out by the CAA and affiliated
organizations repeating the false claim that Israel was to blame. This was sent to the entire MIT
undergraduate student body, despite rebuffing by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the
Wall Street Journal, and others. The CAA has not, to this date, retracted their irresponsible
statement, nor did they seek contrition for spreading such falsehoods on campus.
Instead, one
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Jewish student who responded in an attempt to set the record straight was subsequently accused
of “denying an active genocide.”
Mistakes may be excused if the perpetrator expresses contrition. However, this claim was
deliberately sent to the entire MIT undergraduate class (over 4,500 students) with no
accountability for its impact.
*
Evidence that the damage was caused by a mid-flight failure of an Islamic Jihad rocket: NYT, WSJ, CNN, NPR. Additionally,
The Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as President Joe Biden, have confirmed this investigation.
October 19th, 2023: Incitement and harassment calls at a CAA Rally
A CAA rally, held outside the Student Center, included chants of “One Solution: Intifada
Revolution” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Some protesters directly
harassed Israeli students who were filming the protest quietly and unobtrusively from the side.
One protester held their bicycle up as if to threaten an Israeli student, before getting very close to
her and saying “Your ancestors [referring to Holocaust victims] didn’t die to kill more people.”
Slogans such as “Intifada revolution” and “From the river” are typically assigned explanations
that place them in a non-harassing context, while for Israelis, and many Jews, they have far
darker meanings. In the past, the Arabic word Intifada (“shaking off”) had non-violent
connotations, and “Free Palestine” usually referred to Palestinian self-determination. Yet
“Intifada” was the name Palestinians gave to two increasingly violent periods in recent history
that provoked a campaign of suicide bombings that terrorized Israel in the early 2000s.
Moreover, the slogan “from the river to the sea” originated in Arabic during the foundation of the
State of Israel to denote that the partition of Israel into Jewish and Arab states was invalid and
that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab (or Islamic)” (cf. this Wikipedia article).
So, once again, context matters: with these phrases being used in the aftermath of a massacre of
Jews, it is obvious for Jewish listeners to hear the threatening interpretations of these phrases.
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Members of our community, especially ones of Israeli descent, experienced the violence of the
intifadas and rejected any notion that the term means anything other than violence against
Israelis. For members of the MIT community to fail to take this into account despite our many
attempts to decry the use of such language, when the same ideas regarding Palestinian
self-determination and freedom can be communicated with different terminology, is to fail the
MIT policy of “respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others.” Ignorance of the
connotations of these terms cannot be an excuse, especially when used repeatedly over the
course of several months.
October 23, 2023: CAA Interrupts Classes to Spread its Propaganda
The MIT CAA staged a ‘classroom walkout’ at 11:30 AM, i.e. during class time. MIT instructed
lecturers to: “exercise flexibility, where you can, for any students who wish to engage in limited
protests about matters that are important to them. Students who wish to participate should do so
in a way that respects the need of others to continue their instruction in the class.”
Despite the clear instruction to allow the general student body to continue their studies, some
lecturers chose to end their class at 11:30 to support this action, which clearly failed to respect
the need of others to continue their instruction in the class. The walkout also violated the MIT
time and manner procedures for protests. More troublesome, some lecturers who wanted to
continue their educational mission were disrupted by chants of “Free Palestine” from those who
left. See here for 3.091, Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry, and here for 18.06, Linear
Algebra, among others.
Additional violations of MIT policies, include placing posters on all lecture halls seats to
advertise the walkout.
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October 30, 2023: CAA “Die In” in Lobby 7 (Banned Protest Space)
The CAA publicly advertised and then ran a “die-in,”. They posed inside
Lobby 7 and disrupted foot traffic, despite rules prohibiting such indoor
demonstrations.
This was the first of several deliberate protest acts to disrupt normal
conduct and movement through the main entrance of MIT. We emphasize
that this is certainly not an antisemitic event, and at the same time, it is a
violation of MIT rules which we did not enforce and thereby ‘opened the
door’ to the more severe and antisemitic violations reported below.
November 2nd, 2023: CAA Disorderly Behavior at MISTI
and the President’s office, Harassing Staff and threatening Faculty
After launching a campaign against the MISTI-Israel Lockheed Martin Trust Fund, the CAA
protested at the MISTI (MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives) offices, harassing
MISTI staff. To quote a faculty member present at the event:
“They insistently rattled the door handles of offices that were closed with staff inside;
and they congregated outside of and entered the office that facilitates MISTI’s
programming in the Middle East, and at least one other office. Their chants included:
‘From the river to the sea…’, ‘MISTI, MISTI, you can’t hide,’ and cries associating
MISTI with genocide”
After the incident, many staff reported feeling alarmed, intimidated, and afraid during the protest.
Some staff members said they felt trapped in their offices, anxious about the prospect of verbal
and physical assault. Rattling door handles is not necessary to convey speech; it is a precursor to
physical violence.
The students later protested outside the office of the faculty director of MIT-Israel MISTI
program, linking his name specifically with their claimed ongoing genocide. The faculty member
felt threatened and did not return to campus for several weeks, due to personal safety concerns.
Last, the students also forcefully stormed into MIT President Sally Kornbluth's office, who
wasn't present at the time. A police officer was subsequently placed outside the President’s
office, indicating a real concern for her safety and that of her staff following this event.
November 8th, 2023: Posted “Sally You Can’t Hide” on Social Media
A video was posted on the CAA's Instagram account showing a poster with President Sally
Kornblunth’s name with painted blood. This poster, which some students report seeing as posting
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an implicit threat of violence due to the use of ‘blood font’, was later
publicly used at the CAA's illegal blockade on Lobby 7. Explicit
references to a specific Jewish Professor involved with the MISTI-Israel
program were also listed on posters, requiring that they “end the fund”
(terminate an educational program). In the context of the forthcoming
blockade, many perceived this as an act of threat and intimidation.
November 8th, 2023: Faculty Letter, Rules Clarification and
DSL Meeting
Following the MISTI protest and harassment of MIT employees, and in anticipation of the
Lobby-7 blockade, over 100 faculty signed an urgent letter to the administration asking them to
enforce the MIT rules moving forward. On the same day, the Division of Student Life (DSL) sent
a letter to all students clarifying the rules for campus protests and announcing procedures for
accelerated action on reports of harassment and discrimination, including use of interim
disciplinary action. Later that day, the CAA announced they would continue with the Lobby-7
blockade, despite the DSL email and its clear statement that rules violations can be subject to
immediate disciplinary consequences.
November 9th, 2023: Blockade Rally Out of Control
The CAA announced a full-day blockade of Lobby 7, in clear violation of MIT’s protesting
policies. Following repeated requests by members of the faculty, MIT’s long-standing protest
policy was sent to all members of the MIT community as a reminder of what actions are allowed
on campus. The CAA chose to ignore MIT’s guidance and announced that they would proceed
with the illegal blockade.
Following the CAA’s decision to disregard MIT’s policies, DSL called for a meeting with leaders
of the Jewish community, asking them to avoid counter-protesting the CAA blockade. In light of
the numerous events that took place the weeks before, and the rules clarification shared with the
community, the meeting attendees asked what consequences there would be for this unlawful
protest. Despite acknowledging their ability to enact interim disciplinary action to handle the
blockade, DSL did not offer assurance that this event would be handled differently than past
events or that it would lead to consequences this time. The meeting attendees expressed their
concern about MIT’s lack of a concrete action plan for handling the planned blockade or past
events. They explained that incitements to aggression against the Jewish community had become
unbearable for them, that they were being dehumanized on campus, and that they felt that this
time they must stand and show their humanity on campus.
By not ensuring clear physical separation between the groups, MIT unintentionally facilitated a
direct interface between the groups, which risked turning physical.
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Seeing a real risk for a physical altercation, MIT leadership used its interim action policies and
issued a warning at noon that all students remaining in Lobby 7 after 12:15 pm would be subject
to suspension (including any personal ramifications such action can lead to). The letter was
handed to the students by faculty and student support staff, who clarified that this instruction
came directly from the president.
Although the Jewish counter-protesters left, without exception, CAA protesters chose to stay and
defy the President’s orders.
Later in the day, following social media calls by the CAA, numerous unaffiliated non-student
protesters arrived to join the protest and flood the Lobby 7 area. Warnings were subsequently
issued by the MIT Police and by Hillel to avoid Lobby 7.
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Later, while students were still refusing to leave Lobby 7, the Department of Urban Studies
(DUSP)t Head and DEI officer reached out through an official email. They did not condemn the
students' breach of MIT rules, nor urge compliance with the MIT leadership's directive to vacate
the area. Instead, they inquired whether the students had received further notices from the
Institute regarding potential suspensions. The message was interpreted by many students as an
indication that the Department supports the CAA students in their stance against the MIT
administration and would defend them from the consequences of breaking MIT’s policies. The
DEI Officer for DUSP who cosigned this email, Sophia Hasenfus, had previously endorsed
X/Twitter posts stating that "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" and denied the beheading of
infants on October 7th, as seen here (the X account is no longer public).
November 12th, 2023: Boston Rally Blocks Mass Ave
The CAA co-sponsored a rally that came to protest at MIT,
blocking Mass Ave and entrances to Lobby 7. Chants calling to
“Globalize the Intifada” and “There is only one solution: Intifada
revolution” rang through MIT’s campus. As mentioned above, it
is widely known that in the context of Israel many uses of
“Intifada” refer to violence against civilians. Calling for it to be
globalized, in the context of the 10/7 massacres, was reported to
have raised fear among Jewish students who worry this violence
could target them here at MIT. Many Jewish students reported
locking themselves in their dorms out of fear of being harmed by these non-MIT protesters, and
many decided to travel home because it was too much to handle.
Speeches delivered that day were directly aimed at inciting violence, for example:
“It is our duty to fight… history requires trouble… resistance is resistance…it is not
enough to exist passively…not enough for us to come out and march…we have to shake
history with our own two hands…when we free Palestine the whole damn world is
coming with us…resistance requires sacrifice.”
The leaders of the CAA also delivered speeches taunting MITs administration for backing down:
“Sally Kornbluth is new to MIT; she doesn’t know how we operate yet. We won't back
down (repeated manyfold)…We stood up to one of the most powerful institutes in the
world and got THEM to back down!”
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November 13th, 2023: Online bounty on Jewish student
Videos from the Lobby 7 blockade are being posted online. First by MIT students and then
shared by others. One Jewish student in particular was identified trying to enter the Infinite
directly, walking through students blocking their way.
A carefully edited video showing only a small part of the
full incident (e.g. omitting parts where Jewish students
were shoved) was shared online and went viral. The
popular Twitter page “Stop Zionist Hate” shared the
video, offering a $800 bounty to anyone who can identify
the student. The student was named soon after and a
different post appears stating that “he is wanted all over
campus and the city. Zionism and Israel are the scourge
of humanity. His head should be crushed wherever he is
seen.”
This is the most egregious case of Doxxing we are aware
of. The student stayed locked up in their dorms for weeks
with their friends bringing food, check-ins from the
police, and their family terrified for their safety. While
less extreme, there are unfortunately many more cases of
Doxxing, promoted explicitly by MIT students.
MIT has an off-campus misconduct policy, which it can
choose to apply to online behavior, just as it would to
real-world altercations between students on the Boston Common. We are not aware of CoD
reviews of student Doxxing incidents and are hoping they are indeed being done.
November 14th, 2023: Announcement STAH initiative
A new campus-wide initiative has been announced: Standing Together Against Hate (STAH).
The announcement talks about the rise of antisemitism in the world and how we cannot let it
poison our community. It says that “antisemitism will be our initial primary focus” and that a
“group within it [STAH] will spearhead efforts to combat antisemitism at MIT, and we'll
announce the leaders soon”. The leaders were never announced.
November 14th, 2023: “Whatever means possible:” Safety Concerns Stoke
Fear
Several instances in which non-Jewish students were exposed to hateful and troubling behaviors
have been reported. Such incidents have been communicated as warnings to Israeli/Jewish
friends to keep out of harm's way, or directed towards non-Jewish students who would not
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disavow their Israeli friends. In some settings, students shared that they were required to express
support for Palestine and/or condemn Israel in order to be included in parties. In other settings, if
they are not willing to take a side, they are told that they are “genocide supporters”.
In the example below, a non-Jewish student shares a distressing account of the hostile
environment on campus after witnessing fellow students condoning violence. Note the “by any
means possible” rhetoric, which has been normalized on campus.
November 15th, 2023: Recording the MIT Faculty Meeting
An Institute-wide faculty meeting was convened to discuss the situation on campus. Students
from the CAA attended, which is highly uncommon but allowed by MIT rules. After the
meeting, videos were circulated on social media, showing the president addressing selected
faculty comments. Sound recordings of individual faculty were also disseminated, even making
it to NPR. The recordings and videos were reported to have been edited to include only selected
statements, allowing them to be presented out of context. This led to the Faculty receiving harsh
responses, accusing them of promoting extreme stands (e.g. against DEI), which they never did.
To the best of our knowledge, information from a faculty meeting was never disseminated
publicly and in such a falsifying manner.
The students also attended the next institute-wide faculty meeting on February 20th. This time as
a larger group, with one even carrying a drum. At the beginning of the discussion session, a
faculty member called an executive session. The motion was supported by the faculty and the
students were instructed to leave. The meeting continued without interruptions.
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November 16th, 2023: Chaplain event incites hatred against jews
A student attending an event titled “Planetary Health: Indigenous Land, Peoples, and Bodies”
hosted by an MIT Interfaith Chaplain, reports that the chaplain repeatedly diverted the discussion
to proclaim Israelis as white European colonizers and Palestinians as oppressed people of color.
e.g., “[Palestinians are] wrongfully subjugated and oppressed by racist white European
colonizers”. Towards the end of the event the Chaplain was reported to have asked the Jewish
students to self-identify when serving dessert. Students attending the event reported feeling fear
and dismay at this behavior by an MIT staff member, who still holds a student-facing role today.
Students report that the Interfaith Chaplain in question participated in the “victory is ours”
November 9th protest, was a speaker at the November 12th protest that blocked Massachusetts
Ave, and was a participant at the CAA’s “artmaking” event on February 8th which was organized
to create materials for the group’s unsanctioned protest on February 12th. The Chaplain is
reported to frequently underscore the singularity of Palestinian Indigeneity at CAA events,
without any mention or reference to the written history of Indigeneity of Jews. While everyone is
entitled to their own personally held beliefs, one can question the appropriateness of such active
participation in CAA events by an MIT employee serving in a student-facing role, and who
should be a resource to all members of our community.
The behavior of this Chaplain was reported to IDHR by a student whistleblower, who hoped to
stay anonymous for fear of retaliation. However, despite the daming claims put forth, and the
fact that the event described in the complaint was public with several witnesses that can be
contacted to corroborate the complaint, IDHR decided not to investigate it. This interfaith
Chaplain, who preaches antisemitism, is still employed by MIT in this role. The ordeal of the
anonymous student who reported this to IDHR, and was later forced to identify, is detailed in this
document (link). The initial report, which was sent also to members of MITs’ senior leadership at
the time, is pasted below:
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November 27th, 2023: DEI Issues Left Unaddressed
A departmental DEI officer endorsed posts online claiming, among other things, that “Israel
doesn’t have a right to exist, it’s an illegitimate settler-colony like the US.” and denying the Oct.
7th massacre: “The actual president said he saw photos of beheaded babies that he didn't
actually see (because they don't exist because it didn't happen), and I just think we need to
unplug the propaganda machine”. Students reported that this officer was also actively working
with the CAA to arrange their rallies.
In a different case, an MIT postdoc was reported to spread blood libel propaganda and hate
speech, e.g.:
“Seriously, at what point do we consider Zionism to be a mental illness? … Then I
thought.. ironically, here I am believing that Zionist Israelis are Jewish fundamentalists
who want to enslave the world in a global Apartheid system and destroy the lives and
livelihoods of anyone who dares to dissent.”
Later the postdoc admitted: “Sorry, am I sounding antisemitic?” In other posts, they accused
“Zionists” (which many in the MIT community are) of organ harvesting, and compared Israelis
to Nazis.
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In response, a concern was raised to the postdocs departmental DEIJ (Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion, and Justice) representatives. The DEIJ officer acknowledged the pain that this person
is causing to students, but questioned if their posts are in-fact antisemitic. They went on to claim
that the conspiracy theory that “Zionists” harvest organs of Palestinians is based on “confirmed
reports,” and exposing ignorance with regards to modern antisemitism that substitutes “Judaism”
with “Zionism” to avoid being called antisemitic. Rather than unquestioningly acknowledging
the issue and offering concrete support to the students (as commonly accepted to be the practice
of DEIJ), this DEIJ officer discouraged the victims from even reporting it: “I would be very
cautious before accusing any one of our colleagues, staff, or trainees of hate speech.”
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The two reports above showcase extreme incidents where Jewish community members felt the
MIT system failed them. Joined with the Chaplain incident (see Nov 16 above), members of the
Jewish community report that they feel alienated by the very structures on campus that are
intended to foster a sense of inclusion and belonging.
December 4th, 2023: Antisemitism is not the priority
Despite the President’s clear message on Nov. 14th, an update by the Chancellor stated: “... we
said that antisemitism would be our initial focus. …we have come to appreciate that antisemitism
and Islamophobia – also on the rise, and often underreported – are best addressed at the same
time.” That message did not announce how the Institute will go about addressing these issues.
We are unaware of any committee formed to address antisemitism or Islamophobia at MIT as
was done, for example, at Harvard.
December 6th, 2023: CAA Hosts Speaker Encouraging Targeting of Hillel
CAA hosted Miko Peled at MIT. Despite formally being under suspension from non-academic
activities, many of the students leading the Lobby 7 blockade participated in this event. Students
in attendance reported that Miko explicitly encouraged students to combatively approach
individuals at the Hillel Center for Jewish Life at MIT:
“You go to Hillel and whatever the mascot is here and tell them they need to answer how
they don’t condemn the genocide in Gaza.”
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December 6th, 2023: Harassment of students at Hillel
A man with paranoid beliefs harasses people at the Hillel building. He does
not seem affiliated with MIT but does approach Jewish students and
accuses them of being Mossad agents. Later he looks through the Hillel
lounge window and starts peeing on it, in front of the students studying
there.
While the person seems to have nothing to do with MIT, it shows
conspiracy theories about Jews seem to be spreading. Combined with the
events of the past weeks at MIT, many students report becoming extremely
nervous. They are afraid and can’t find shelter even at Hillel.
December 7th, 2023: Holocaust desecration posters
Posters desecrating the memory of the Holocaust appear on bulletin boards around campus. Over
a red background, the text of the poster reads “The right and wrong way to understand Never
Again.” The QR code on the poster leads to an Instagram video of a Bob Avakian, that many
view as antisemitic and inciting.
December 13th, 2023: Karchmer Resignation
Algorithms lecturer Mauricio Karchmer resigns. His class is one of the most popular classes at
MIT, teaching ~60% of the undergraduate student body. Explaining his resignation Karchmer
writes publicly about campus events and their impact on himself and other members of the
Jewish community:
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“Students chanted “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” with fury and at
times glee, like they were reciting catchy songs instead of slogans demanding the erasure
of the Jewish people. Even worse, faculty members started endorsing this behavior. One
DEI officer at MIT liked an October 17 post on Twitter stating that “Israel doesn’t have a
right to exist, it’s an illegitimate settler-colony like the US.” On October 18, a renowned
faculty member in the neuroscience department accused Israel of committing “genocide”
on Twitter. Then, the next day, she tweeted that her department was seeking a “diverse
pool of candidates” for a tenure-track position in her department’s “inclusive
community.” I remember thinking, with bitter irony, that Jewish academics need not
apply.”
He describes his disappointment with the one-sidedness of the faculty newsletter articles and
lack of support from his non-Jewish peers, “The only voices in the newsletter standing up for
Jews were Jewish. But we are too few to fight this battle.” And his pain for the young Jewish
students on campus:
“Though I cringed as I read these faculty letters, and shuddered as I walked by protests
on campus, nothing has hurt more than watching the Israeli and Jewish students—who
comprise fewer than 6 percent of the MIT student body—suffer. ”
Dr. Karchmer is now teaching at Yeshiva University, where he feels safe and appreciated. We
strongly recommend reading his free-press article.
December 14th, 2023: Hockfield Rally Inciting Violence
At this protest, which was organized following MIT rules, crowds cheered for “armed resistance”
and to “hold a knife to their throats.” A speaker advocated pushing back against MIT, saying
“that means staying at their throats.” Once again, there were calls for “no peace.” Perhaps these
phrases were meant poetically, but again in the context of the Oct. 7th massacre, it is natural for
Jews to feel a credible fear of being physically attacked by those making such statements.
MIT Advisory for this event acknowledged the issue, and helped restore some safety to the
students:
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December 21st, 2023: Support of Houthi Terror Attacks
Two days after the US announced the creation of a naval coalition to
defend the Red Sea shipping route from attacks by the Houthi
Terrorists, the CAA posted on Instagram in defense of the terror
attacks of the Houthis, calling for the US to take their hands off of
Yemen. The accompanying post hailed the aggression of the
Iranian-backed militia as “a moral ban on Israeli commercial ships …
to exact economic pressure until a ceasefire and humanitarian aid is
achieved for the Palestinian people.” The post continued to conflate
the acts of the Houthi Terrorists with the Yemeni people. They failed
to acknowledge the role that the Houthi terrorists played and continue
to play in that war. To that end, CAA failed to acknowledge the
Houthi terrorists’ attitudes towards the US, Israel, and Jews as expressed on their flag; the
Houthi slogan reads, “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the
Jews, Victory to Islam.”
January 11th, 2024: Words are Violence?
Using someone's 'deadname' is considered a “violent act”, but calling for the genocide of jews
“depends on the context.”
In her congressional testimony (Dec. 5) President Kornbluth insisted that calls for the genocide
of Jews are not necessarily bullying or harasment;they must be pervasive and depend on the
context. This appears to be at odds with the harassment training required of the entire MIT
community, where ‘deadnaming’ someone (i.e. using their ‘former’ name) is itself a violent act,
regardless of context. See screenshot below, from the section on LGBTQ+ 101 education.
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January 24th, 2024: Standing Together Against Hate Program Publication
The STAH spring lectures program is published. It includes 4 talks: one on free speech, a couple
on antisemitism and Islamophobia, and a talk about anti-Palestinian racism. No talk on
anti-Israeli bigotry or demonization of Zionism, despite the Jewish community being clear about
it being a major issue for them on campus.
The Islamophobia panelist, Dalia Mogahed, is an activist who was reported to post in a way that
endorsed Hamas terrorism as an act of lawful “resistance.” She suggested that Israelis are
"savages" who "kill babies" and "bomb hospitals" and even went as far as to insinuate that Israel
doesn’t care when its women report sexual assault complaints and usually does not believe them,
to raise doubts on reports of large-scale sexual assault on Oct. 7.
Free speech panelist Erwin Chemerinsky is a scholar, serving as the dean of the University of
California, Berkeley, School of Law. His school was sued in November over "unchecked"
campus antisemitism. After the publication of the program, the title of Chemerinsky’s talk was
modified to include antisemitism: An act which many in the Jewish community described as
adding insult to injury.
We present a collection of student responses from the night the program was published:
● “This really sucks. I feel that MIT simply hates Israelis. I regret coming here.”
● “MIT admin is like actually like communally concussed or something. What’s wrong
with them?"
● “MIT's way of combating hate is nuts”
● “I honestly don’t know what’s worse, that MIT can’t do simple fact checking before
inviting a person, or that they did and think it’s ok inviting them despite retweeting
statements that Hamas has a right to massacre Jews”
● “I couldn't care less about the speaker. It's about the Institution's decision making."
● “What I understand from this is that hate against Israel is ok at MIT and will not be
addressed by STAH”
● “There is an Israeli saying that goes something like: "it's ok to pee in the pool, it's not ok
to pee from the diving board”
● "I am trying not to react emotionally but this [denial of sexual assault] strikes a nerve for
me.”
February 12th, 2024: Lobby 7 Takeover
In parallel to the first STAH talk about antisemitism, the CAA announced an ‘emergency rally’
protest outside the student center. The protest was not approved by MIT and was in direct
violation of the protesting rules published just days earlier. The protest included statements
against MIT’s attempt to promote dialogue: “We’re tired of dialogue across difference when
there can be no f-ing dialogue across difference”. They further incited hatred ofJews and
Zionists: “Our safety is threatened by white supremacy and the dangerous equations of Judaism
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and Zionism” and claimed that the Jewish tradition is used
to justify Israel’s “colonialist capitalist white-supremacist
agenda.” Three non-Jewish students, who were walking by
on their way out of the gym, reported concern that protest
participants were making statements that called for “Jihad”
against Israel.
They then moved the protest into Lobby-7, occupying it
again, after repeated warnings from the MIT
administration. Protestorshung flags and banners shouting
“Hear us loud, hear us clear, IOF not welcome here”. IOF,
short for ‘Israel Offensive Forces’ / ‘Israel Occupation
Forces,’ is a pernicious reference to the IDF (Israeli
Defence Forces). To many, their words are clear: Israelis
who served in the army and/or are currently serving in
reserve duty are not welcome at MIT, knowing full well
that essentially all Israeli students on campus are veterans
of its compulsory military service program.
The next day, President Kornbluth issued a statement. She shared that MIT is “suspending the
CAA’s privileges as a recognized student organization” but makes it clear that “suspending the
CAA is not related to the content of their speech.”
In talking about campus climate she acknowledges the ongoing shunning of Israeli and Jewish
members of our community (“as members of one community, we shouldn’t feel it’s OK to vilify
and shun Israeli and Jewish members of our community“) but then immediately build an
appearance of symmetry by stating
that “Equally, we shouldn’t feel it’s
OK to vilify everyone who
advocates for the Palestinian
people as supporting Hamas.” We
are aware of, and strongly
condemn, isolated incidents of
MIT community members
generalizing members of the
Middle-East-North-Africa
community as terror supporters.
This is reportedly happening
primarily around protests which we
understand relates to the CAA’s
public support of the Oct. 7th
massacre. However, this is not a
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wide-spread notion within the MIT Jewish community. The Jewish students groups do not hold
protests targeting their peers and are not leading an effort to socially shun other members of the
MIT community. Therefore, the administration’s insistence on building a symmetric narrative of
two groups that are holding an altercation on campus is viewed by many in the Jewish
community as a heartless action that is meant to disguise what they feel is the real situation at
MIT: one group of students is inciting hatred of another.
We do realize that many students feel that they are protesting for peace. Our goal here is to
present how this is impacting a different group of students on campus, unpeacefully. We only
intend to condemn words and acts that incite hate, even if that is not the intention of some of the
students making them.
Graduate Student Union involvement and support of the BDS
According to ADL: “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is an
international campaign aimed at delegitimizing and pressuring Israel, through the diplomatic,
financial, professional, academic and cultural isolation of Israel, Israeli individuals, Israeli
institutions, and, increasingly, Jews who support Israel’s right to exist… In practice, the global
BDS movement doesn’t seek to create a Palestinian state but rather aims to dismantle the Jewish
state and end the right to Jewish national self-determination on any portion of this contested
land.”
01/22/2018 meeting minutes: Decision to organize with UE over UAW includes considerations
of promoting and preserving BDS support, as shown from the discussions that lead to this
decision:
08/31/2020: Decision about which website builder to use (Squarespace over Wix) involve BDS
considerations:
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Fall 2021: MIT Hillel has a conversation with GSU leadership to ask for a guarantee that BDS
won’t be on their agenda. GSU refuses to promise anything concretely, but they do make
handwavy comments about caring about employment conditions rather than political statements.
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04/08/2022: BDS Boston congratulates GSU for winning the NLRB vote to unionize.
02/27/2023: GSU sends an email explicitly condemning anti-LGBTQ hate speech on campus. At
the same time, they made no comment about anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hate speech on campus
since October 7th.
10/09/2023: A GSU employee who is no longer a student at MIT is interviewed on Boston 10 as
a participant of the Pro-Hamas rally at the Cambridge City Council. He justifies the Oct. 7th
massacre in his interview.
11/05/2023: GSU employee leads protest through the MISTI offices
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11/09/2023: Grad Union Reps and leadership spotted participating in the protest in Lobby 7
11/10/2023: GSU email expressing support for the Lobby 7 protest and calling on MIT to protect
students rights to protest
11/20/2023: Graduate student
coffee hour for Palestine hosted by
GSU employee and others.
01/25/2024: GSU sends an email
announcing that two union
members are being investigated by
IDHR for their participation in
pro-Palestinian demonstrations and
are being denied third party
representation at the investigation.
GSU falsely claims that the denial
for third party representation
violates the terms of their contract
and calls for a protest in front of the IDHR offices. CAA emails out a call for people to join the
protest.
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01/30/2024: GSU holds a rally outside of IDHR offices in support of the union members being
investigated for violation of campus rules. The rally quickly evolves into a “bash Israel fest”.
01/31/20214: Rally and post by GSU.
02/08/2024: Despite persistent attempts, Jewish students have been unable to exercise their
''religious objection'' to avoid paying dues to a BDS supporting union.
* Additional information can be found in this link.
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What is Dormspam? - A major source of distress for Jewish students
Dormspam is a campus-wide unmoderated emailing platform. It is an essential resource for
students living on campus to keep up with campus activities and events, and to obtain updates on
day-to-day dorm-related issues. Since Oct. 7, starting on the very day of the attack on Israel,
dorm-wide emails (~4,500 students) that contain rhetoric that is hostile to Jews and Israelis have
been circulated 2-4 times a week. In several instances these emails turned into heated discussions
on a campus wide platform and even into personal attacks on Jewish and Israeli students. A
number of instances have been recorded in which students not involved in the email thread
discussion were named and personally attacked.
This form of public shaming of individuals on our campus has been unheard of before Oct. 7 and
has been targeted only at Jewish and Israeli students. It has been one of the most significant
sources of distress in this community.
Several examples of messages sent via Dormspam are provided above as they relate to specific
events. Below are some additional examples. Note that since most faculty are not on Dormspam,
hence these were often shared as low quality screenshots.
Interestingly, the MIT Ad Hoc Working Group on Free Expression Report seems to have
‘predicted’ issues like the one presently on Dormspam. An analysis of a fictitious scenario that is
centered around a ‘Conflict over Student Speech’ in a residence-hall community is described in
their report (page 25-26). Therein an electronic hall-wide communications channel (similar to
Dormspam) is used to promote pro-Russian views in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war
prompting a student of Ukrainian origin to approache their Head of House (HoH) demanding that
the student responsible for these posts be banned from the house communication media “on the
grounds that his posts constitute hate speech and advocacy of genocide”. In a meeting with the
HoH, the Russian student defends his posts on the grounds of free expression. This scenario is
analyzed in light of the Mind and Hand book statement on freedom of expression:
“Freedom of expression is essential to the mission of a university. So is freedom from
unreasonable and disruptive offense. Members of this educational community are
encouraged to avoid putting these essential elements of our university to a balancing
test.”
Hence, the students’ conflict requires MIT to “undertake just such a balancing test”.
One perspective asserts that
“Banning the student would deprive the living community of the opportunity to counter
the posted propaganda with reasoned arguments demonstrating the extent to which his
comments are misinformed.”
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and instead recommends a discussion with the complainants engaged on the same
communication channel to present their stance, allowing the members of their living community
the opportunity to appreciate their point of view as a Ukrainian citizen.
The second perspective states that:
“Unmoderated mailing lists … run a risk of turning into soap boxes for people with
strong opinions in ways that detract from the original purpose of such digital venues. It is
highly advisable that such fora have clear and explicit purposes that allow moderators to
shut down discussions that deviate from those purposes in a viewpoint-neutral way.”
It goes on to explain that in this scenario, while there is value in students learning the
pro-Russian arguments for the Ukraine invasion—and in practicing how to refute them—, a
hall-wide communications channel that is not generally used for political discussions “may not
be the most productive place to have such a discussion. Time, place, and manner restrictions
have a long tradition in First Amendment case law, and this scenario illustrates an application
of that tradition.” (emphasis added by us)
We note that, in both of the above perspectives, prompt action by the HoH and the dorm
community is encouraged, if by education and dialogue, or by clearly defining the appropriate
type of messaging allowed on a particular channel. In both cases a single communication on the
channel was sufficient to justify a response. Yet, on our campus, since Oct. 7, we have seen 2-4
such communications per week; distributed not to a specific dorm group, but to the entire
community of ~4,500 undergraduate students; neither of these two perspectives for action have
been implemented. In fact, the Jewish and Israeli students have been discouraged from
responding to the inflammatory emails through Dormspam - since this has been shown to prompt
personal attacks on them. Hence, the remaining option would be the second perspective.
Moderation of dorm emails is effectively done for the graduate dorm emailing lists; surely a
similar mechanism could have been applied for the undergraduate Dormspam.
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