WATCH | ‘Same climate of anti-Semitism that has led to massacre of Jews throughout centuries’: MIT students

After the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday refused to condemn calls for violence against Jews when they were being grilled by the Congress about their responses to such incidents of anti-Semitism on their campuses, students have taken it upon themselves to protest the rise of antisemitism at MIT. “This is the same climate of anti-Semitism that has led to the massacre of Jews throughout the centuries. This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line,” MIT student Talia Khan said on Wednesday as she addressed a gathering of students.

"This is the same climate of antisemitism that has led to the massacre of Jews throughout the centuries. This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line." @MIT student Talia Khan highlights the rise of antisemitism at MIT. pic.twitter.com/zXb03xodXb

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) December 5, 2023

The students were highlighting the rise of anti-Semitism at MIT in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Khan went on to elaborate that she was a student of MIT and the daughter of a Jewish mother and an African-Muslim immigrant father. She also introduced herself as the “proud president of the MIT Israel Alliance” and a “Jewish student who was currently immersed in an extremely toxic anti-Semitism atmosphere at MIT”. Khan told the gathering that the MIT administration had failed to address the crisis of rampant anti-Semitism on MIT campus. “There is a radical anti-Israel group on campus called the CAA. In recent weeks, the CAA’s anti-Semitism rhetoric has shifted the culture on campus to such an extreme of intolerance that 70% of MIT’s Jewish students polled feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives.” She went on to add that day after day the MIT administration has failed to enforce its own rules on anti-Semitic rhetoric and anti-Semitic actors on campus.