Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, sat through a 47-minute special screening of a film that shows the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Kornbluth has been facing heavy criticism for her performance during a recent congressional hearing in which she refused to say that calls for genocide of the Jewish people amounts to harassment.

According to Kornbluth, she was pressured by faculty and members of the administration, to cancel the screening, which was hosted by Israel envoy to the UN Gilad Erdan, in tandem with the MIT Chabad House. Reports by others in attendance said that Kornbluth showed signs of visible shock as she watched the film, and at points, she averted her eyes. She left the minute the film was over.

Will knowing the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish people make a difference in Kornbluth’s outlook on Israel or her handling of antisemitism on campus? It seems unlikely. Standing by Israel and the Jews is wildly unpopular in academia and on campus at the moment, and it would not be a popular move for Kornbluth to do an about-face.