MIT President skips campus-wide commemoration of October 7 victims due to 'prior commitment'
MIT’s President Sally Kornbluth did not attend a campus-wide commemoration on the anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel.
Kornbluth’s absence was defended by a university spokesperson as a result of a scheduling conflict.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology President has come under fire for not attending a campus-wide commemoration on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks due to a scheduling conflict.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth was absent from the commemoration, which was meant to be a display to show support for Israel and Israeli/Jewish students.
In a comment given to Jewish Insider by a university spokesperson, the university stated that “the president has a long-standing prior commitment at that time, which unfortunately could not be rescheduled.”
The event was sponsored by MIT’s Israel Alliance, Chabad, and the university’s Hillel. The university spokesperson stated that “other members of the senior administration attended the memorial event on campus,” but did not state which senior members were present at the commemoration.
Since October 7 on MIT’s campus, there have been numerous disruptions to student life organized by pro-Palestine students groups and activists.
Earlier in the semester, MIT’s President had condemned an incident that occurred during an August orientation event where flyers were handed out to students which promoted a Mapping Project that targets organizations that support “the colonization of Palestine.”
The map distributed to students during the event called out institutions such as the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, the Hillel Council of New England, and the Jewish National Fund’s New England Regional Office.
Rabbi Michelle Fisher, the Exectuive Director of MIT Hillel, stated that President Korbluth has “been supportive of and present for our Jewish students a number of other times this week, including at [the dinner and services],” referencing a Rosh Hashanah dinner that Korbluth attended.
Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out MIT’s administrators, alongside Harvard and Penn’s, during his address to Congress over administrative responses to anti-Israel encampments and rhetoric on campuses. “80 years after the Holocaust, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and I am ashamed to say, my alma mater, MIT, couldn’t being themselves to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews.”
Additionally, the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing in July, titled: “Confronting Union Antisemitism: Protecting Workers from Big Labor Abuses,” where a graduate student from MIT called out the university’s student union’s anti-Semitism.
