MIT President Sally Kornbluth said Friday that a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters had become a “high-risk flashpoint” that attracted “outside threats,” forcing her to have police clear the camp as a “last resort.”
In an 1,485-word statement released Friday morning, shortly after police dismantled the encampment and arrested 10 people, Kornbluth detailed what she described as persistent efforts by university administrators to convince protestors they could not occupy a campus lawn, where their actions disrupted daily life and emotionally burdened Jewish and Israeli students.
“The encampment had become a symbol for both sides. For those supporting the pro-Palestinian cause, it symbolized a moral commitment that trumped all other considerations, because of the immense suffering in Gaza,” Kornbluth wrote. “For the pro-Israel side, the encampment — at the center of the campus where they are trying to receive an education and conduct research — delivered a constant assertion, through its signs and chants, that those who believe that Israel has a right to exist are unwelcome at MIT.”
Kornbluth wrote that given the location of the campus in the heart of a region with a large college-age population, the MIT encampment had become a “flashpoint,” drawing the attention of “outside threats.”
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“The escalation of the last few days, involving outside threats from individuals and groups from both sides, has been a tipping point. It was not heading in a direction anyone could call peaceful,” she wrote. “And the cost and disruption for the community overall made the situation increasingly untenable. We did not believe we could responsibly allow the encampment to persist.”
Once it became clear negotiations would not succeed, MIT steadily increased pressure on the students by first warning they could face internal discipline and then following up with students who were identified as participants in the encampment, Kornbluth wrote.
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“The actions we’ve taken, gradually stepped up over time, have been commensurate with the risk we are in a position to see. We did not take this step suddenly. We offered warnings. We telegraphed clearly what was coming. At each point, the students made their own choices,” Kornbluth wrote. “And finally, choosing among several bad options, we chose the path we followed this morning – where each student again had a choice. I do not expect everyone to agree with our reasoning or our decision, but I hope it helps to see how we got there.”
In the statement, Kornbluth provided a detailed timeline spelling out the emergence of the encampment on April 21, and how protesters and their supporters shut down Massachusetts Avenue last Friday, knocked down university-installed fencing on Monday, and then blocked access to the Stata Center garage twice this week.
“And thus we arrived at this morning’s police action — our last resort,” she wrote. “I have no illusions that today’s action will bring an end to the conflict here, as the war continues to rage in the Middle East. But I had no choice but to remove such a high-risk flashpoint at the very center of our campus.”
Kornbluth said that the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has triggered powerful emotions among the MIT community, which includes a Holocaust survivor, relatives of victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, as well as “people with friends and family currently in mortal danger in Rafah.” MIT also “includes people who hold a spectrum of views beyond those expressed by the encampment and by its fiercest opponents.”
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Everyone on campus, Kornbluth wrote, has “an interest in being treated with decency and respect for our humanity. That interest comes with a responsibility to offer each other the same consideration. We must find a way to work through this situation together; I pledge to work on that with anyone who will join me.”
John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.