University president Sally Kornbluth walked back twice on her promise to remove the protesters from the area.

By Jessica Costescu, The Washington Free Beacon

In the run-up to an annual Israeli Independence Day celebration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, university president Sally Kornbluth assured student organizers that an unauthorized anti-Israel encampment—located in the same area where the Jewish students planned to hold their event—would be cleared in time.

It wasn’t, prompting school officials to walk back their promise and press the Jewish students to reschedule or relocate the event, messages obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

On April 24, Kornbluth privately told student leaders of the MIT Israel Alliance, Talia Khan and Eitan Moore, that the encampment would be removed within four days, Khan and Moore said.

The MIT Israel Alliance had reserved the same campus lawn occupied by the unauthorized protesters, Kresge Oval, for its May 7 Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.

“President Kornbluth assured us in private communications that the encampment would be removed in time for our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration,” Khan and Moore wrote in a Monday letter to MIT administrators.

But Kornbluth went on to push back her deadline to clear the encampment—first to May 1 and then to May 3, according to Khan and Moore.

Then, on May 5, MIT Office of the President chief of staff Aaron Weinberger told the group that the school would not be able to “bring the encampment to an end … in time for the event on Tuesday afternoon.” He asked the students to move the celebration.

“We can offer two options: May 7 on Hockfield Court or May 14 on Kresge oval, as originally requested,” Weinberger wrote in an email, which was obtained by the Free Beacon.

“Either way, we will work with you to ensure you have the support you need for a successful event.”

The Jewish students responded defiantly, vowing on Monday to “continue with our celebration as planned.”

That same day, Kornbluth directed anti-Israel protesters to “leave the encampment peacefully by 2:30 p.m.”

While some obliged, a small group remained in the encampment as the student organization behind it, MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, called for reinforcements to “defend” the area.

Around 6 p.m., protesters breached a fence surrounding the encampment, flooding the lawn, and remained overnight.

By Tuesday afternoon, the encampment remained intact. MIT Israel Alliance went ahead with its event anyway, which it held just outside a fence meant to contain the unauthorized protesters in the encampment.

MIT put the fence back up after protesters stormed it Monday, according to a student.

“The Jewish and Israeli community at MIT … has undergone some of the worst violence, hatred, and injustice in the past 7 months,” Khan and Moore wrote in a Monday letter to Kornbluth, “and we have seen the MIT Administration stand idly by as classmates, lab partners, and even our professors praised the murder of our friends and family, called for violence against Jews, and most recently chanted ‘Death to Zionists’ on MIT campus.”

“You claim that if we are willing to wait just one more week, on top of the seven months we have already waited for you to act, you will finally support the Jewish community and take action against those calling for our deaths and the deaths of our loved ones,” the students continued.

“We don’t believe you. … We will hold our celebration of Jewish self-determination, as planned.”

Kornbluth’s failed attempt to clear the encampment—and shifting deadline to do so—comes as the president faces congressional scrutiny into her handling of campus anti-Semitism.

The House Education Committee formalized an investigation into MIT in March, roughly three months after Kornbluth appeared before the committee alongside then-Harvard University president Claudine Gay and then-University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill. The hearing was a disaster, and both Magill and Gay resigned in its wake.

Now, the committee, led by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), is in the process of obtaining internal documents regarding Kornbluth’s response to campus anti-Semitism.

In a March letter sent to Kornbluth, Foxx expressed “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of MIT’s response to antisemitism on its campus,” citing “hypocrisy and selective enforcement of Institute rules.”

MIT did not respond to a request for comment.

In her Monday directive to disband the encampment, Kornbluth said student protesters who opted to leave voluntarily would avoid suspension.

Those who stayed in the encampment would face immediate suspension, she said.

Hours later, after protesters breached the campus lawn and retook the encampment, Kornbluth issued a Monday evening “update.”

She said most students “had left the enclosed tent area” on Monday afternoon before “a large number of outside demonstrators arrived” and caused a “surge.”

None of those demonstrators were arrested, Kornbluth said.

“As we write, about 150 students and others are standing in a circle around the tents and others are nearby chanting,” she said.

“While no arrests have been made on campus, police officers from MIT, Cambridge and the state remain on the scene to preserve public safety.”

“We have much work still to do to resolve this situation, and will continue to communicate as needed,” Kornbluth said.

Kornbluth has a history of walking back promises to discipline anti-Israel protesters.

In November, she threatened to expel students engaged in unsanctioned protests before opting to place those students on a “non-academic suspension,” which allowed them to continue attending class.

Kornbluth said she did so to protect foreign students, citing “serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues.”

The post At MIT, administrators allow unlawful encampment to displace lawful Israeli Independence Day event appeared first on World Israel News.

MIT’s president said genocidal calls would only constitute harassment or bullying if they were ‘targeted at individuals.’

By Jack Elbaum, The Algemeiner

A computer science lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) resigned from his position on Wednesday because of the campus community’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

“The past few months, since Oct. 7, have been deeply disappointing to me,” Mauricio Karchmer wrote in a LinkedIn post. “During a time when the Jewish and Israeli students, staff, and faculty were particularly vulnerable, instead of offering the support they needed, the broader MIT community exhibited open hostility towards them. Like many other college campuses nationwide, the institute clearly failed this test.”

Karchmer, who described his last five years at MIT as “very rewarding,” also cited the fact that, in his view, several departments have jettisoned critical thinking in favor of political ideology.

“Some areas of study at MIT seem to prioritize promoting a specific worldview over teaching critical thinking skills. This seems to have been institutionalized in many of MIT’s departments and programs,” he wrote. “MIT has some work to do if it wants to continue in its mission ‘to educate students in areas of scholarship to best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.’”

Like many other US college campuses, MIT has come under fire for the response by students, faculty, and administrators to the Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7, when Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas invaded Israel, murdered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 240 others as hostages. Mounting evidence of atrocities committed during the attack — including systematic torture, rape, and other sexual violence — has shocked the world.

Shortly after the massacre, the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid and Palestine released a joint statement that seemingly rationalized Hamas’ violence. “We affirm the right of all occupied peoples to resist oppression and colonization,” the statement read, adding that the campus groups were “committed to supporting decolonization efforts in Palestine.”

Faculty member Michel DeGraff later lauded the Coalition Against Apartheid’s “moral clarity” and advocacy for Palestinians, which, he wrote in the MIT Faculty Newsletter, “inspires us to honor the humanity of us all — from the river to the sea, from Gaza to MIT.”

The slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — popular among anti-Israel activists, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre — has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The MIT Coalition Against Apartheid has promoted at least 15 protests since Oct. 7. During one such demonstration, students were arrested after occupying a building for a “die-in.” Jewish and Israeli students decried the protest, reporting that the coalition “physically prevented” them from attending class by forming a “blockade” of bodies in Lobby 7, a space inside the main entrance of the university.

“Instead of dispersing the mob or de-escalating the situation by rerouting all students from Lobby 7, Jewish students specifically were warned not to enter MIT’s front entrance due to a risk to their physical safety,” the MIT Israel Alliance wrote in an open letter to MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “The onus to protect Jewish students should not be on the students themselves.”

In the letter, the students warned that radical anti-Zionism and intimidation of Jewish students on campus has become intolerable and even reminiscent of Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.

Despite such hostility on campus, Kornbluth said of Oct. 7 shortly after the onslaught that “such a deliberate attack on civilians can never be justified.”

Kornbluth later made national headlines — along with the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) — after she was unable to answer whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated MIT’s code of conduct. She said such genocidal calls would only constitute harassment or bullying if they were “targeted at individuals.”

The other two presidents have since resigned, but Kornbluth has received the support of the university board and the deans. Faculty leaders also wrote an open letter to argue that “as educators, we seek to open minds rather than to close mouths. The approach of MIT’s leadership has not been to make lists of what can’t be said, but to talk directly with our students — both in public and in private — about the meaning and consequences of what they say.”

Karchmer’s departure is the latest fallout from elite universities’ responses to the Hamas attack and ensuing war in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the terror group. US college campuses have experienced an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — since Oct. 7. massacre across southern Israel.

Top universities have been among the biggest hubs of such activity, with students and faculty both demonizing Israel and rationalizing the Hamas atrocities. As a result, some high-profile donors have pulled their funding to schools such as Harvard and Penn.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses between Oct. 7 and Dec. 18. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

Karchmer has lectured at MIT since 2019 and taught an Introduction to Algorithms class, which he says 60 percent of undergraduates take.

MIT declined to comment on Karchmer’s resignation, but did confirm to The Algemeiner that he will be departing this month.

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