A student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has gone viral for awkwardly interrupting a math lecture to protest the so-called “massacre in Gaza.”
The clip, viewed more than 18 million times on X since posted by billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, shows an unidentified student standing in front of a class while a lecturer writes math equations on the blackboard.
“I’m sorry,” the student said twice, swinging his arms and legs in obvious awkwardness.
“I’m just going to finish this line,” the lecturer finally told him after initially ignoring him. “Can I finish this line?” he added, returning to the whiteboard to continue.
The student kept twitching and looked nervous as he had to stand for another 35 seconds before the lecturer finished and turned to see what he had to say.
The student then read a prepared statement from his phone, saying: “As you watch the carnage in Gaza in the silence of MIT, I join hundreds of students across the city in walking out of class.
“We stand for Palestinian liberation against the active genocide perpetuated by MIT, Israel and the United States.”
An MIT student interrupted a math class to announce that he would participate in a pro-Palestinian protest and slammed the school, Israel and the US for perpetuating “active genocide.” GFS News / Youtube
The student then picked up the Palestinian flag and waved it while chanting “Free Palestine!” over and over as a few others joined in the chant — but with others seen on camera just looking at them.
“This is the state of learning and ‘free speech’ at our leading university,” Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square and a vocal critic of student activists on the issue, wrote alongside the clip, which he said was filmed last Wednesday.
“Imagine being a student borrowing $250k to attend MIT or a professor trying to do research in this environment.”
The lecturer asked if he could finish writing the equation before the student spoke in class. GFS News / Youtube
One user X wrote: “I feel bad for the professor. Should act like nothing happened.”
Another wrote: “The last decade has turned learning from academia to activism. Just 15 years ago as a student at Harvard and taking many classes at MIT, I never saw activism — or it would have been limited to a 30-minute peaceful protest in front science center.”
A third added: “A university classroom should be a safe space for all. There is no place for this nonsense in math class! Universities need to take a stand to protect ALL students.”
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyGetty Images
Last week, Jewish students at MIT said they were prevented from attending classes by hostile anti-Israel student “blockades” — and feared the school was “unsafe for Jews.”
An open letter written by the Israel MIT Alliance claimed that Jewish and Israeli students were “physically” barred from classrooms by a “hostile” pro-Palestinian group called the Coalition Against Apartheid.
“This comes after students from CAA harassed MIT staff in their offices for being Jewish and disrupted classes in the past few weeks,” the group wrote.
“Many Jewish students are afraid to leave their dorm rooms and have expressed that they feel MIT is unsafe for Jews,” the letter said.
The MIT Israel Alliance said the CAA protest was on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht – the infamous pogrom carried out against Jews across Nazi Germany in 1938 that is considered the start of the Holocaust.
The Post has reached out to MIT for comment on the incident in the math lecture.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
