A Massachusetts Institute of Technology student-organized conference canceled a lecture about a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine figure, losing participants as a result of the controversy surrounding the talk.
The MIT Arab Science and Technology Conference, organized by the MIT Arab Student Organization, had been set to host a lecture by activist Susan Abulhawa called “Following in the Footsteps of [PFLP spokesman] Ghassan Kanafani.”
According to a social media post by Abulhawa, many speakers withdrew from the conference because of her involvement and concerns about the injection of politics into the event. Abulhawa said on Friday that she agreed with the committee to withdraw, as a significant majority threatened to pull out, which would have led to the event’s collapse.
The MIT administration said it did not ask the student organizers to change the program or any speaker.
Ahead of the event, the conference program was updated a few times on the event website before finally being removed. A new program was posted on Instagram on Friday. The conference had originally been set to run from Friday until Sunday but ended a day earlier.
Raising the alarm
MIT Israel Alliance president and graduate student Talia Khan, who first raised awareness of the issue, published emails on social media allegedly from conference planners to attendees, detailing that “due to incidents of online harassment directed at invited speakers,” several had decided not to attend, resulting in the schedule being “significantly reduced.” Ticket holders were reportedly given a full refund.
While the alleged email indicated that organizers supported the decision of the withdrawn speakers, Abulhawa castigated them as “House Arabs” and “cowards and sycophants” for avoiding politics in a time of “genocide.”
“What kind of cognitive dissonance is required [to] hold such [a] belief when science is endlessly weaponized to sever Palestinians from their land and heritage – from genetics and botany to taxonomy and ecology; and when the greatest death and surveillance technology is deployed to shred, burn, and dismember our bodies, our homes, trees, birds,” wrote Abulhawa.
“What a disgrace these so-called ‘tech leaders’ or ‘business leaders’ [are] who cannot fathom the connection between tech and genocide.”
Last Tuesday, Khan had called for MIT to act against the promotion of Abulhawa, noting that the activist had described the October 7 massacre as a “spectacular moment” in an October 12, 2023, Electronic Intifada article.
While the 15-year-old annual STEM conference was held in campus facilities, an MIT spokesperson emphasized that the event was independently arranged by the student group, and “as with all of the thousands of events that take place on campus each year, views expressed by any speaker are their own and do not reflect those of MIT or the wider community.”
The SciTech conference, according to the event website, aims to serve as a platform for “innovation, collaboration, and dialogue centered on the Arab world’s scientific and technological advancements.”
The conference was discontinued until this year due to the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. The 2025 event’s theme was “Following in the Footsteps of Al-Khwarizmi” – a celebration of Arabs who have shaped science and the next generation of leaders.