Jewish Student Traumatized By Anti-Semitism At MIT To Be Speaker Johnson’s State Of The Union Guest

A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who recently testified about how anti-Semitism is engulfing her campus will attend the State of The Union address on Thursday as a special guest of Speaker Johnson.

Talia Khan said the high-profile invite sends the message to universities failing to take action against anti-Semitism that Jewish students can’t be silenced.

“I’m grateful that Speaker Johnson is showing that he is listening to the Jewish students on campuses and taking our concerns seriously by inviting me to the State of the Union,” Khan told The Daily Wire. “It is an important message to universities that they cannot continue to try to silence us.”

Khan, the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Afghani Muslim father, spoke at a House Education and Workforce Committee panel with other students across the country who testified to rising anti-Semitism on their campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians. During the panel, Khan described how she has become traumatized on campus by violent chants, mobs taking over student pathways to class, and an unhelpful administration.

“Talia Khan has courageously exposed the pain many Jewish students are experiencing as antisemites and Hamas-sympathizes are supported by Democrat-backed university administrators,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m proud to have Talia join me as my guest for the State of the Union as House Republicans stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters against antisemitism.”

Thank you @ADL and @JGreenblattADL for sharing my speech and helping raise awareness about these issues on campus! https://t.co/3qhV8wOeKU

— Talia Khan (@TaliaKhan_MIT) March 2, 2024

“Jews are forced to tiptoe around, being careful to follow all rules to a T, hiding our Jewish clothing and symbols, while anti-Israel students and faculty bring outside mobs and continue to break rules, uninhibited by the feckless MIT administration,” Khan said. “I am left scared and vulnerable, as the MIT administration repeatedly intimidates me and other Jews into taking our Israeli flags down from our offices, though we still see Palestinian flags, and flags representing other nationalities and identities, waving freely around campus.”

Khan also pointed out that all of the members of the faculty anti-Semitism advisory council resigned.

“The faculty who took part on the faculty antisemitism advisory committee grew so tired of being discounted and ignored by Kornbluth’s administration that every single one resigned.”

A detailed 32-page report written by professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Lionel C. Kimerling documented numerous incidents that validate Khan’s claims.

According to Khan, anti-Semitism on campus is causing a brain drain and national security threats.

“For America to maintain its status as the most innovative country in the world, we must ensure safety for all in our leading academic institutions, like MIT,” she said. “Losing great minds at MIT to shelter terrorism supporting student groups is a national security threat, and everyone on and off campus should be concerned.”

She added that she was thankful to Johnson for the invitation and that she wants the country to see supporting Jewish students as a nonpartisan issue.

“The rampant antisemitism we are now seeing on campuses all across the country reflects a deep moral rot at the core of our nation’s higher educational institutions,” Khan said. “Those attacking Jewish students not only hold dangerous and unacceptable antisemitic views, but also harbor attitudes completely antithetical to American values.”

Other revealed guests of Johnson so far are the parents of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been imprisoned in Russia since last March, Mia Schem, the 21-year-old who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, the mother and brother of Omer Neutra who is still held hostage, and two New York city police officers who were attacked by a mob of migrants in January.