PhD scholar Prahlad Iyengar who was barred from coming into the MIT campus following a pro-Palestine essay final month has now been suspended till January 2026 which might terminate his 5-year NSF fellowship. MIT Coalition Towards Apartheid launched a protest towards the choice calling this a blow to free speech.
The essay in query appeared in Written Revolution, a multidisciplinary scholar journal concerning the pro-Palestinian motion.
Iyengar, a PhD scholar within the Division of Electrical Engineering and Pc Science, was additionally suspended final yr following the pro-Palestinean rallies.
The October situation of the journal included the article “On Pacifism,” which featured imagery and language that “may very well be interpreted as a name for extra violent or harmful types of protest at MIT,” in keeping with an e-mail despatched by MIT Dean of Pupil Life David Warren Randall to the editors of the journal.
The e-mail additionally cited the inclusion of a number of pictures within the article, together with one that includes the brand of the Common Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been designated by the U.S. State Division as a terrorist group.
Because the editors of the journal confronted disciplinary motion, Prahlad Iyengar mentioned it was a gross violation of free speech. The aim of the journal was to “put out in our phrases, what we had been doing, why we had been doing it and what was occurring on campus,” he mentioned to WBUR.
The MIT Coalition Towards Apartheid mentioned Iyengar’s suspension is successfully expulsion as his educational profession might be disrupted and his readmission should be allowed by the identical panel that suspended him. “Prahlad is now interesting his case with the Chancellor to revoke or scale back the unjust sanctions towards him. We’ve launched a marketing campaign to place stress on MIT’s administration to cease criminalizing college students who stand on the fitting aspect of historical past. We name on all organizations and establishments of conscience to signal on and stand as much as MIT’s repression,” the coalition mentioned in a petition.
