Ah, college graduation — the time when students don robes, toss mortarboards in the air, and pretend they’re not secretly terrified of their student loan statements. It’s a celebration of knowledge, freedom of thought, and — if you’re lucky — not being escorted off campus like a contestant eliminated from Bigg Boss: MIT Edition.
But this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Class of 2025’s graduation took an unexpected turn when its student president, Megha Vemuri, was uninvited from her own commencement. Yes, you read that right. In the plot twist no commencement speaker could’ve prepared for, Vemuri was told: “Thanks for four years, now kindly exit stage left — and take your family with you.”
The crime? A pro-Palestine speech at an official event, which apparently violated the sacred ancient scrolls known as MIT’s Time, Place and Manner rules — which, judging by the name, sound like a Victorian butler with a monocle last updated them.
MIT: Where Speech is Free, But Delivery Costs Extra
It all began when Vemuri, dressed in a red keffiyeh (because nothing says “rebellion with GPA” like coordinated accessories), gave a speech that criticized MIT’s research ties with Israel and the conflict in Gaza. She took the stage like a tech-savvy Che Guevara and called out the institute’s relationship with the Israeli military. Bold? Yes. Unexpected? Maybe. Violation of policy? Allegedly.
Chancellor Melissa Nobles, wielding the mighty Sword of Bureaucracy, shot off an email faster than MIT students solve differential equations. In it, she accused Vemuri of deliberately and repeatedly misleading commencement organizers. (Translation: “You said you’d give a speech, but didn’t tell us it would come with a side of geopolitical fire.”)
Her punishment? No student marshal role. No graduation attendance. And a family-wide campus ban, which feels like the academic equivalent of grounding someone and also taking away their Wi-Fi.
Family Pack Bans: Now With Extra Irony
Imagine studying for four years, pulling all-nighters, surviving group projects (aka the Hunger Games of academia), only to be told: “Hey, thanks for the memories — now, kindly vacate the premises.” And to add spice to the story, her entire family was also barred from campus for the festivities. Because clearly, Mom was the real threat MIT was worried about. You never know when she might throw a sandal of dissent from the bleachers.
It’s unclear whether MIT installed “Protest Detection Lasers” at campus entrances, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the Class of 2026 gets RFID-tagged at orientation.
LinkedOut: The Disappearance of Megha Vemuri
Following her speech, the internet reacted in its usual measured, rational way — just kidding. Social media promptly exploded. Critics called her everything from “misguided” to “cancel-worthy,” and Vemuri, presumably tired of LinkedIn becoming a warzone of unsolicited thinkpieces and keyboard warriors, deleted her profile.
One X (formerly Twitter) user posted a screenshot of her vanished profile with the solemnity of a missing person notice. “Gone too soon,” one might say. Except instead of RIP, the mood was more BRB: Changing Privacy Settings.
We tried searching for her on LinkedIn and were redirected to a void where dreams and job prospects go to disappear.
Students Today, Revolutionaries Tomorrow
But let’s give credit where it’s due. Megha Vemuri wasn’t just tossing grenades into the echo chamber. She’s a decorated student — majoring in computer science, neuroscience, and linguistics, which basically means she can build a robot to read your mind and correct your grammar. Before MIT, she interned in South Africa, worked on revolutionary student thought, and likely built at least one app more useful than Facebook Messenger.
So naturally, when she used her platform to advocate for a political cause — one shared by many students — it struck a nerve. MIT’s leadership, caught between free expression and donor relations that likely involve more zeros than the average campus café receipt, responded by removing her from the ceremony faster than a misplaced semicolon in a Python script.
The speech, now immortalized online thanks to the Palestinian Youth Movement, lives on — because if there’s one thing universities should’ve learned by now, it’s that trying to suppress something is the best way to make it go viral. If Vemuri’s speech was a mixtape, MIT just made it platinum.
Commencement or Cancellation? Depends on the Chancellor
Let’s be honest. Universities have always walked a fine line between supporting student expression and avoiding anything that makes their board of trustees reach for antacids. But this new era of campus crackdowns is like watching academia do the Macarena while blindfolded.
Just last month, NYU delayed awarding a diploma to Logan Rozos, another student who dared to turn commencement into a TED Talk on Palestine. He, too, was punished for what administrators called a “disruption.” Apparently, if you want to speak about Gaza at graduation, you better be majoring in mime performance.
Meanwhile, MIT’s official statement reminded us that campus speech must follow the rules. Time, place, manner. Like a Shakespearean curse. “Thou may speak, but only on Tuesdays, between 3:00 and 3:07 PM, on a patch of lawn pre-approved by Facilities.”
One wonders if the same rules apply when students demand better dorm Wi-Fi. “Sorry, Tim, your protest against 0.5 Mbps buffering violates the Manner clause.”
Welcome to Commencement — Brought to You by Silence & Sanitization
Let’s not forget that these institutions love speeches — as long as they’re about “changing the world,” “following your dreams,” and “not embarrassing the university’s defense contracts.” The moment a speech ventures into actual global events, it’s like watching administrators suddenly develop vertigo.
What they really want is a TED Talk about “resilience” that ends with a standing ovation and a group selfie. Not someone using the moment to point out that maybe, just maybe, there’s something wrong with publicly funded education doing private deals with foreign militaries.
In Conclusion: Magna Cum Loudmouth
So, here we are. Megha Vemuri — the MIT Class President who showed up, spoke out, and got booted like a forgotten campus printer. She walked the stage in courage, if not in regalia. And while she won’t have a graduation photo with her diploma, she’ll have a Wikipedia page that’s a whole lot more interesting.
If commencement is supposed to celebrate courage, leadership, and truth, then maybe it’s MIT that missed graduation this year.
As for Vemuri, she may not have walked across the stage, but she sure made a mark — possibly with a permanent marker, right on the MIT playbook.
And somewhere, in the great cloud of LinkedIn purgatory, her ghost profile still whispers:
“This isn’t the end. It’s just the start of my unsanctioned post-grad tour.”