Directing her speech at her fellow MIT graduates, Vemuri said “You have faced the obstacle of fear before, and you turned it into fuel to stand up for what is right. You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine.”
Hyderabad: An Andhra Pradesh-origin student, at her graduation ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), called out Israel and issued a strong pro-Palestine speech. Megha Vemuri, who was the president of her 2025 class, bashed MIT for its support to Israel and called them “complicit in genocide.”
The speech came amid the US government taking a strong stand against pro-Palestine activities in several universities, including Harvard and Columbia, and for not doing enough to curb what it called “anti-Semitism” on the campuses. Ranjani Srinivasan and Badar Khan Suri, two Indian students, among thousands from other nations, are deportation and detention in the US over their alleged participation in pro-Palestine protests,
Directing her speech at her fellow MIT graduates, Vemuri said “You have faced the obstacle of fear before, and you turned it into fuel to stand up for what is right. You showed the world that MIT wants a free Palestine.”
“Last spring, MIT’s undergraduate body and graduate student union voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with the genocidal Israeli military”, the MIT grad said, while wearing a red keffiyeh. She said that students faced threats and suppression from the university officials.
MIT has previously banned the distribution of a pro-Palestinian student-run magazine and disciplined one of its editors.
Bashing MIT for its involvements with Israel, Vemuri said “We are watching Israel try to wipe Palestine off the face of the earth. And it is a shame that MIT is a part of it. The Israeli occupation forces are the only foreign military that MIT has research ties with.”
Calling MIT to cut ties with Israel, she added “This means that Israel's assault on the Palestinian people is not only aided and embedded by our country, but our school. As scientists, engineers, academics, and leaders, we have a commitment to support life, support aid efforts, and call for an arms embargo.”
Megha’s parents are from Andhra Pradesh, while she was born and brought up in the USA. According to her LinkedIn page, she completed her graduation in Computer Sciences along with Neuroscience and Linguistics from MIT, and her high schooling from Alpharetta High School in Alpharetta, Georgia.
She co-founded Forte Promotions in 2019, worked as an undergraduate research assistant at MIT Media Lab for over a year, and also has experience as an Undergraduate Research Assistant at McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Her speech video went viral on social media, and while some supported Megha voicing against Israel, many netizens criticised her for being brainwashed, and using MIT’s graduation ceremony as a political ground. A user on X said “The commencement stage, meant to honour years of hard work, was hijacked by the class president’s hateful, divisive drivel—spewing woke nonsense that props up terrorists.”
