One month after Cornell University suspended an international student, Momodou Taal, putting him in jeopardy of deportation after a pro-Palestine action on campus, the university is once again using opaque justifications and processes to issue severe penalties for students engaged in Gaza solidarity protests.

Following a mid-September action, multiple students have received “persona non grata” statuses, which bans them for three years from the campus in Ithaca, New York.

A single administrator appears to be able to issue severe penalties against students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protests, by claiming the need to protect the campus, without providing evidence or following any type of procedure that resembles due process. Students and faculty believe this is a targeted approach to quietly quell pro-Palestine protests on campus.

Weaponizing “Protection”

In 2021, university officials amended the Cornell student code, enabling the student disciplinary office, the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS), to put in place restrictive measures against students with little oversight. The amended code enables the OSCCS to act quickly and suspend students from campus in the event of seven types of scenarios, such as an escalation in unlawful conduct or use of a weapon, and if they are individuals with a history of violent behavior.

According to Cornell’s interim provost John Siliciano, who spoke at a recent faculty senate meeting, “The director [of the OSCCS] can impose a temporary suspension where immediate action is necessary to protect the Complainant or the University community.”

In recent weeks, Cornell students engaging in pro-Palestine activism have been facing suspensions using what many students and professors would characterize as an overuse of these highly restrictive temporary measures. Four students are now banned from campus for three years, and many others face other types of suspension.

The university’s actions are in response to the demonstration that took place at the Statler Hotel, on Cornell’s campus, on September 18. In a video recording from the event, a crowd is seen pushing through a line of campus police and banging kitchenware and using musical instruments (other footage of the action can be viewed here and here).

Shortly after the demonstration, Taal was suspended. A PhD candidate in Africana Studies and a graduate student worker, Taal initially faced the prospect of deportation due to his suspension. After student organizing, pushback from the graduate student union, and national criticism of the university’s actions, the administration chose not to de-enroll Taal. However, Taal is still not permitted to set foot on campus, despite the university’s failing to offer evidence of his wrongdoing.

Weeks later, on October 9 and 10, three other students were arrested by campus police and charged with unlawful assembly and obstructing governmental administration. The following week—marking nearly one month since the Statler Hotel protest—they met separately with the OSCCS director, Christina Liang, where they each received a persona non grata status from Cornell University campus police, “which essentially means that if I step on campus, I will be arrested,” said one the students, undergraduate Atakan Deviren.

A letter from Liang, sent to the suspended students, reads: “Due to the extraordinarily serious nature of the allegations, including the use of physical force to gain entry to the Statler Hotel after being clearly told you were not permitted to enter, and the ongoing, significant impact your behavior continues to have on the university, immediate action is necessary to protect the university community.”

Just two days after the students received Liang’s letter, the Cornell Board of Trustees held a scheduled meeting in Ithaca on October 18 and 19. That same weekend was also when the university released footage of the action.

A common chant at last year’s divestment protests was directed toward Cornell University president Martha Pollack to push for the Board of Trustees to divest: “Martha, Martha you can’t hide! Divest now or resign!” By the end of the 2023-24 academic year, the student body had voted in a referendum in favor of both divestment and for the university to call for a ceasefire. University president Martha Pollack opposed the demands of the successful referendum and then resigned. Needless to say, the university did not divest.

The suspended students pointed out that the chair of Cornell’s board of trustees is Kraig Kayer, who serves on the board of directors for the aerospace and defense company Moog Inc. “The most powerful person at this university has a conflict of interest,” said undergraduate student Yihun Stith, who also received a persona non grata status, about Kayser.

When asked for a comment regarding Kayser’s role on both boards, a university spokesperson responded in an e-mail, “Cornell University recognizes that the quality of governance is enhanced by the broad and varied expertise that exceptional leaders bring to the Board of Trustees. The university has a policy on conflicts of interest and commitment. The Board of Trustees’ Audit Risk and Compliance Committee is responsible for ensuring that senior leaders and governing board members comply with this policy and perform their duties without inappropriate influence by external commitments or financial interests.”

Prior to his suspension, Deviren was on a student meal plan, which he can no longer access because of his persona non grata status. He also lives on campus, and has been told by the university that he must vacate his dorm by November 9. “Cornell wants to break my spirit,” he said. “They’re doing this because they want to cause me harm. They’re putting me in a position of food insecurity.”

Stith, who was also on a university meal plan, asked if he could get an exception to enter the dining hall “in any capacity, whether that was just to go pick up food, whether that was just send someone there to pick up food for me, whether that was to, like, sit in there and then eat.” But he said that “all of those were rejected.”

Graduate student Sriram Parasurama, also banned from campus for allegedly taking part in the same action, can no longer continue his on-campus horticulture research, and faces loss of a federal fellowship if he is de-enrolled. Jacob Berman, a Jewish fourth-year undergraduate at Cornell was suspended for his presence at the same action, which he doesn’t deny; he does deny the allegations put forth by the university around violence and harm, however. Berman requested an exception for being able to attend religious services, similar to the exception that the university had granted to the suspended students to be able to attend on-campus medical appointments. Liang responded in an e-mail, “After due consideration, it is inappropriate for me to permit you to access campus for purposes of attending Shabbot services.”

Stith was also denied an exception to access on-campus church services, which he attended regularly. Berman also lost income thanks to the suspension, as can no longer work at his off-campus federal work study job, which he said he partially relies on to be able to pay rent and afford necessities.

Due Process and Theater

The university’s actions have provoked vocal criticism from a number of Cornell professors, in addition to students. “Temporary suspensions are being used to arbitrarily punish students who have not been found responsible under the hearing and review process, and who might never be,” wrote David Bateman, a professor at Cornell, in an e-mail. The hearing-and-review process Bateman mentions is the formal process by which wrongdoing and disciplinary action are taken, which was also put in place in 2021. “It’s basically a prosecutor’s tactic: overcharge someone so they have a massive sentence ahead of them, so that they’ll plead down to something lesser, even if they were innocent to begin with,” said Bateman, who is an associate professor of government in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell.

Indeed, the use of harsh penalties and unfavorable timeframes seems to be a tactic being employed by the university against at least 19 students since these protests ramped up.

The five students banned from campus are a subset of those facing disciplinary action for actions on Cornell’s campus. Over a dozen students connected to the September 18 disruption also face non-academic suspensions, which permit students to continue to attend classes, access dining halls, check out books, and go to medical appointments, but prohibits them from being anywhere else on campus, engaging in extracurricular or entertainment events there, or using facilities like gyms.

Bateman and other faculty, as well as students, have acknowledged that the formal hearing-and-review process is slow, while the university’s temporary process can result in de-enrollment in less than a month. “They did not give a timeline on their end of how the investigation would be proceeding,” said Parasurama, “but did inform me that if I did not start an appeals process or genuine effort towards an appeals process with them, that within three weeks they would be de-enrolling me.”

In response to a question about whether investigations into suspended students’ cases have commenced and when they will be completed, the Office of Media Relations replied, “To date, Cornell has identified 19 individuals who disrupted university operations as part of a protest that shut down the September 18 career fair sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at the Statler Hotel.” Asked about specific student cases, the university added, “Please note that FERPA protects the records of individual students and bars institutions from discussing specific conduct cases.”

“It does seem to me like it’s basically a threat being held over our heads,” said Parasurama, when asked about why these suspensions were so long in duration. “It feels to me that it’s just being held over our heads as a threat of like, ‘If you don’t comply with us, then you’re not welcome back.’”

Bateman was formerly a member of the university’s hearing-and-review panels, but resigned after he learned of the university’s issuing suspensions of student protesters without due process toward the end of the spring 2024 semester. He, among other faculty members, questioned interim provost Siliciano about the suspensions during a Cornell faculty senate meeting and critiqued the way those suspensions were being used, on October 9.

As reported by The Cornell Daily Sun, Siliciano responded to this criticism of the administration’s application of temporary suspensions by saying, “I realize this is, in some sense, theater.” Later in the meeting, Siliciano apologized for his statement.

But formal hearings may in fact be a form of theater at the university without much recourse. Siliciano himself is one of three individuals who have the authority to uphold multiyear campus bans or indefinite “temporary” suspensions. The other two are the vice president of student and campus life, Ryan Lombardi, and the OSCCS director, Christina Liang.

In audio shared with The Nation, Liang describes to a student how the power to impose and uphold multiyear or indefinite suspensions resides in her office. More specifically, she explains that a student could remain on temporary suspension until their case is resolved or until she modifies their temporary suspension status, with Lombardi and Siliciano able to review suspensions only if students appeal them.

In the audio, Liang describes how these temporary suspensions can be upheld even if a formal review process clears a student of wrongdoing or determines that a student does not require suspension.

When asked by the student how a formal hearing and review board’s findings get resolved against Liang’s power to impose indefinite temporary suspensions (if the formal process clears a student of the need for suspension), Liang said, “They do not have any purview pertaining to the temporary suspension that’s already been imposed.” When pressed for clarity by the student, Liang reiterated that penalties under temporary suspension can be different from the determination of the hearing and review board.

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Liang’s response in the audio implies that she has the power to uphold suspensions despite the findings of a formal review process. Such an implication appears to be in contradiction with what the university communicated to The Nation.

When asked to confirm that university administrators can issue penalties that both outweigh and outlast a formal appeals process, even if a formal appeals process deems suspension unnecessary, the Cornell Media Relations Office replied in an e-mail: “Cornell administrators cannot, and have not, issued interim measures—such as temporary suspensions—that outweigh or outlast the formal conduct process.” (Liang did not respond to a request for comment, and the Media Relations Office advised that all requests be sent to its office.)

In e-mails sent to suspended students, Liang also makes it clear that she can choose to alter disciplinary processes based on allegations alone, not findings: “If there are any further alleged violations of the Code on your part while on temporary suspension, regardless of whether related to expressive activity or not, I may complete an immediate evaluation of whether the above restrictions put in place are sufficient to protect the university community. My evaluation could result in a more restrictive form of temporary suspension being imposed” (emphasis added).

“It should be assumed, within this country, that anyone that’s charged with any sort of crime is innocent until proven guilty,” said Parasurama. “But I think the university is operating on the reverse, in that all the four of us that were suspended are assumed guilty until innocent.”

On Wednesday, November 6, the three students who were arrested by campus police appeared in Ithaca City court. The cases of two of the students were adjourned until November 22, to allow them time to negotiate a plea deal. Deviren’s case was temporarily dismissed on the grounds that the evidence presented did not identify him specifically.

Isolating Leaders

When asked why they felt they were selected for harsh punishments of three-year campus bans and indefinite suspensions, some of the students facing suspensions did not want to say, or expressed confusion about how decisions were being made by the administration, since they were not given much information. However, a number of students felt that the administration was targeting student leaders.

“I’m a big member of the Cornell Progressives,” said Stith, referring to a leftist student group on campus that has been vocal in its demands for a ceasefire and divestment. “I’ve also been public-facing in terms of saying I’m a CML [Coalition for Mutual Liberation, an umbrella organization of student groups that organizes pro-Palestine actions on campus] spokesperson, whether that’s like for the Sun or other press outlets.”

Deviren was the cochair of the Cornell chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) which also organizes around calling for a ceasefire and divestment. Deviren communicated that he cannot serve as the cochair while suspended. “I was also very heavily involved with the undergraduate student referendum campaign,” explained Deviren. “The two questions of which were, ‘Should Cornell call for a ceasefire in Gaza?’ and ‘Should Cornell divest from 10 military contractors?’ And then it listed the 10 military contractors. I sort of ran the ground game for that campaign, in which the referendum ended up passing.”

The other cochair of Cornell YDSA, Sara Almosawi, also received an indefinite non-academic suspension from OSCCS, meaning she can be on campus with extremely limited movement, only for classes, meals, checking out books at the library, and so on. And Berman is the vice president of the Cornell chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, which he helped revive in 2021—a student organization active in calling for divestment and a ceasefire.

Of the students now banned from campus, most have a marginalized identity of some sort. Parasurama is of South Asian descent, Stith is of African American of Ethiopian descent, and Berman is Jewish. Deviren identifies as white and Middle Eastern Muslim. And Momodou Taal is a Black, Muslim international student from the UK, of Gambian descent.

When asked to respond to the impression that the university was targeting those with vulnerable identities, the Cornell Media Relations Office stated in an e-mail, “The university is not targeting individuals, but responding consistently with every individual it can identify.”

“I feel like Cornell is just scared,” said Berman, who is Jewish. “I think they’re scared of a Jewish person trying to raise their voice [to say] ‘Free Palestine,’ because it totally destroys their narrative that they’re doing these suspensions and they’re cracking down in student protests because of antisemitism.”

Berman said that the crackdowns seemed to be working against what he believes to be the university’s desired outcome of shutting down these protests. “A lot of people are upset who weren’t upset before. And this all goes back to the main subject that there’s a genocide happening in Gaza right at this moment, and I think that’s what the real focus should be.”

“Although I am suspended now, compared to what innocent people in the Middle East are going through, this is nothing,” said Deviren, echoing a similar point when interviewed. “And we cannot stop [fighting] for those innocent people.”