BOSTON (AP) — The president of MIT has suspended a student group that has held demonstrations against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as protests over the war continue to rattle universities around the country.
In a video statement Tuesday, Sally Kornbluth said the group, Coalition Against Apartheid or CAA, held a demonstration Monday night without going through the university’s permission process required of all groups. The protest was against the Israeli military’s possible ground invasion of Rafah, the city on the southern Gaza border where 1.4 million Palestinians have fled to escape fighting elsewhere in the monthslong war.
As a result, the group received a letter Tuesday advising that its privileges as a student group would be suspended. It will not get any kind of funding that student group’s normally get nor will it be able to use MIT facilities nor hold any demonstrations on campus.
“I want to be clear: suspending the CAA is not related to the content of their speech,” Kornbluth said.