MIT professor pens expose of campus antisemitism: ‘Harassing a small and vulnerable community’

The presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania were ousted after their congressional testimonies regarding on-campus antisemitism in December, however, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth was also in attendance, but her appearance garnered significantly less attention. 

At the hearing, Kornbluth failed to affirm unambiguously that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate campus rules at MIT, but she has not faced the same level of public criticism as her peers at Harvard and Penn. Despite her under the radar testimony, MIT has still been rife with examples of antisemitism in recent months, according to professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Lionel C. Kimerling. 

He wrote and shared a report on behalf of concerned faculty at the university, detailing the rampant on-campus antisemitism that has plagued the university in the weeks and months following the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel. 

Kimerling sent a seven-page report detailing antisemitic events on campus, which was written through the eyes of Jewish and Israeli members of the MIT community, as well as a longer 32-page report with extensive evidence of repeated antisemitic events on campus, which were both shared with Fox News Digital. Kimerling said his goal with the report is to help the broader MIT community understand the experiences of Jewish students and the impact of the hateful actions that have persisted on campus. 

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An "All Eyes On Palestine" poster on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023.  (Getty Images)

In a synthesis of the experiences of MIT students, Kimerling said he and his colleagues wanted to convey "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."

The report began with details of what was happening on campus in the days after Hamas' attack. On October 8, for example, the MIT group "Coalition Against Apartheid" (CAA) had already sent out an email to the entire undergraduate population blaming "all unfolding violence" on October 7 on the "settler colonial regime," meaning Israel. Students were also invited to a "Victory is Ours" rally the next day. 

Dormspam, an unmoderated mailing list that allows any MIT student to email the entire undergraduate student body, was used repeatedly as a "tool to demonize Jews and even attack individual students," according to the report. In the days after October 7, messages called for more protests against Israel and the "Zionists." 

Kimerling described events like these as "intensely hurtful," and argued that history has proven that outbreaks of antisemitism are an early warning of community breakdown. In his email, he called on "faculty to develop a comprehensive plan to allow MIT to return to its core mission," which aims to create 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."

When reached for comment, Kimberly Allen at the Institute Office of Communications at MIT, stated, "Our senior leaders have read the report, and appreciate the care that went into it. Most incidents described in this report were known to the Institute, with some already addressed and others being addressed." 

Allen added, "At MIT, intolerance and bigotry toward Jewish members of our community are an affront to our shared values. In addition to disciplinary action, MIT is responding with an array of educational steps, including required awareness training on antisemitism for senior academic and administrative leaders, and, for the community, a wide range of open academic programs, guest speakers, and small-group discussions. These efforts are well under way and ongoing." 

The MIT representative noted, "President Kornbluth and others in her senior team have been meeting and talking with concerned students, faculty, and staff on a near-daily basis, and will continue to do so. Students who have been impacted have received support from faculty, student life staff, and other members of the community. Both the president and other MIT leaders have spoken out many times on the issues at hand and have set clear expectations around conduct on campus and what it means to live and work together in an open, supportive academic community." 

Jewish students also reportedly warned each other that DEI staff are "not your allies" when they considered reporting instances of antisemitism. One DEI administrator even reportedly told a Jewish American student that they were "not a protected class." Another DEI officer even helped organize CAA rallies, openly endorsing statements justifying Hamas’s terror attack and appeared to suffer no apparent consequences. It was later revealed that DEI officers received no formal training in antisemitism or anti-Israel bigotry.

On October 23, a protester disrupted a class a MIT, waving a Palestinian flag and accusing MIT, Israel, and the U.S. of "genocide." The protestor faced no consequences or reprimand from the professor or school. A few days later, on November 2, CAA members walked around campus with a bullhorn and drums shouting anti-Israel slogans, later invading the MISTI-Israel office suite and harassing staff, before some were forced to lock themselves inside their offices. Events like these terrified Jewish students on campus, the report stated. 

Following the congressional antisemitism testimony on December 6, an MIT linguistics professor thanked the CAA protesters for their "courage and moral clarity" in a faculty newsletter. Then in January, the university announced the programs in its Standing Together Against Hate program, which included discussions on antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamaphobia. The speaker for the Islamaphobia session was an activist who claimed Hamas terrorism as an act of lawful "resistance."

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Kimerling and his colleagues also outlined multiple instances of social shunning. One non-Jewish student was reportedly not allowed into a party because she wouldn't denounce Israel. Another non-Jewish student attended a campus event on "Planetary Health: Indigenous Land, Peoples and Bodies" led by an MIT employee and interfaith chaplain, who "continuously brought up the conflict out of context," stating that Palestinians are being "wrongfully subjugated and oppressed by racist white European colonizers." He later shocked students when he asked participants in the crowd to raise their hand if they kept kosher.

On November 13, President Kornbluth responded to a letter, which was later signed by 1,700 students and alums, about the unsafe environment for Jews and Israelis at MIT in reference to the antisemitic events that had taken place in the past month. While Kornbluth denounced the rise in antisemitism, she then asked Jewish students to stop "spreading rumors" and declined to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is the official working definition endorsed by Massachusetts. 

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In a February statement from President Kornbluth, she condemned anti-Israeli rhetoric by the CAA, but warned that "Equally, we shouldn’t feel it’s okay to vilify everyone who advocates for the Palestinian people as ‘supporting Hamas.'" The statement, given the context, was "intensely hurtful," according to Kimerling and his colleagues because the day before, CAA protestors chanted "Hear us loud, hear us clear, IOF not welcome here," in reference to the IDF and those who had previously served. 

Kimerling told Fox News Digital that his intention in distributing the report was to motivate fellow MIT faculty, who he considers to be talented problem solvers. 

"This report was written by a broad and diverse group of MIT faculty as an awareness alert to a degradation in mutual respect and collegiality that threatens the hallmark of MIT’s intellectual collaborations and success," he said. "The greater faculty response to this report has been appreciative for revealing the effects of this reality on the daily lives of our students, friends and colleagues with a commitment to work personally and together to construct a lasting solution."  

"The core mission of MIT is teaching, research and industrial partnerships to build a better world," he added. "We have confidence in our MIT community to provide a creative and productive infrastructure to support this mission."

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