Cornell University has been in the news for suspending the British-Gambian student Momodou Taal for his lawful involvement in protests against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. On Monday, September 23, Taal was told that he would be disenrolled and needed to prepare to leave the country within days. Taal had never committed a crime, and was never charged with one. An Africana Studies PhD student and graduate worker known for his podcast The Malcolm Effect, Taal has been outspoken in exhorting the university to honor its commitment to divesting from “morally reprehensible” companies, such as those involved in genocide. Cornell suspended Taal for allegedly violating campus policies and backed off from disenrollment/deportation only after enormous public pressure. Taal remains suspended and is banished from campus. He is prohibited from attending classes, advisors’ office hours, academic and social events, as well as from teaching his own class and accessing the library.
Four weeks after Taal’s removal from campus, Cornell released video footage of the protest against a career fair featuring weapons manufacturers for which Taal and others were punished. Why participation in this protest warrants an emergency suspension reserved for those who pose a grave threat to the community is highly questionable. Even more damningly, the video shows at least one of the charges against Taal—pushing Cornell police officers—to be false. The entire Cornell University leadership involved in the disciplinary process – the Director of the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards, the Vice President for Student and Campus Life, and the Cornell Provost – approved Taal’s banishment from campus having reviewed the evidence and knowing the charges against him were fabricated or trumped up.
Worse, having already targeted Taal in April 2024, Cornell knew that for him, a suspension would mean deportation, and they weaponized this knowledge. Out of the hundreds protestors in the Cornell encampment last spring, Taal was one of six students singled out for retaliation for being a member of the negotiation team. The administration learned then that Taal was a British-Gambian national. International students and scholars who are suspended lose their legal status and must leave the country. Cornell knew that suspension would trigger deportations, and it banked on it.
Arbitrary does not mean without reason. It means without a good reason, without a just cause, and without fair treatment.
The Statler Hotel protest against a weapons manufacturing career fair presented an opportunity to exploit Taal’s vulnerability as a non-citizen. The protest took place on Wednesday, September 18. Three business days later, on September 23, Taal was told he would be suspended and deported. He was also informed that appealing was pointless. It took the university three to four more weeks to begin suspending other students involved in the protest. On Taal, they pounced immediately.
As troubling as the targeting of Taal is Cornell’s method for doing so. Cornell has recklessly depicted him as a violent menace, mobilizing racist, “white supremacist caricatures of Black people.” As a Black and Muslim immigrant, Taal is particularly vulnerable to racial profiling as well as presumptions of guilt and unfair treatment. Paul Fleming, Cornell professor of German Studies who accompanied Taal at his disciplinary meeting and wrote about its unfairness, spoke in the Faculty Senate about receiving hate mail vilifying Taal with racist tropes. Racist rhetoric easily garners a life of its own. By smearing Taal as dangerous, Cornell administrators have drawn the attention of racists, putting Taal at risk of hate crimes. The risk is not abstract. Last academic year, when Taal gave a Muslim prayer at a campus vigil commemorating the loss of Palestinian lives, a passerby spat on him.
Rather than protecting Taal’s and other students’ civil and human rights, universities are trying to squash dissent by violating them. On October 2, 2024 the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association issued a comprehensive statement recognizing the repression of campus protests as human rights violations. She demanded that universities revoke sanctions such as temporary suspensions and offer reparations – “effective and full remedies” – for the harm students and staff experienced.
Indeed, Taal and other students, staff, and faculty have been harmed. Imagine what it means to have your livelihood, your legal status, healthcare, and even your housing controlled by an institution that can arbitrarily upend your life at a moment’s notice. Arbitrary does not mean without reason. It means without a good reason, without a just cause, and without fair treatment. Per Miriam-Webster: “not restrained or limited in the exercise of power: ruling by absolute authority.”
The anatomy of Taal’s disciplinary proceedings reveals Cornell’s arbitrariness hidden by a facade of procedure. The facade is now crumbled. The campus is keenly aware that students are being suspended in a “kangaroo court” in which the university administration serves as the complainant, judge, jury, and executioner. When confronted by faculty at a Senate meeting, the Provost declared that the investigations and hearings mandated by the student code of conduct were too cumbersome to comply with. Temporary suspensions, which confer no due process, were preferred, he said, because they were lean and “thin.” In a word, more convenient. So are summary executions, of course.
It is well-documented that certain US and global employers habitually wield the threat of dismissal and deportation as tools of control.
In the past, Cornell has used temporary suspensions against fraternities and other groups suspected of hazing prospective members. (Since I have taught at Cornell, at least two students have died after being hazed: Antonio Tsialas and George Desdunes). Notably, Cornell has not charged other kinds of pro-divestment protestors, such as climate justice groups, with disciplinary violations, much less suspended them. This is the case even though these groups used similar tactics, such as occupying the administrative building and disrupting Trustees’ meetings and campus traffic.
Taal’s suspension is a message to all international students and workers: shush or lose everything. International students and scholars are particularly vulnerable to abuses that happen when convenience replaces justice, as their legal status depends on an institution that arbitrarily takes it away.
It is well-documented that certain US and global employers habitually wield the threat of dismissal and deportation as tools of control. We usually associate this kind of vulnerability to abuse with temporary guest workers who are egregiously exploited: precarious migrants such as seasonal agricultural laborers and victims of human trafficking. “Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated,” writes the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Instead, they are bound to the employers who ‘import’ them.” Now, international students, post-doctoral scholars, and professors are recognizing that the US is no longer a safe and hospitable place to study and work unless one is willing to forego one’s civil rights and keep quiet.
International students’ and workers’ vulnerability to unfair treatment is heightened because of the Republican-led campaign to deport anti-genocide protestors. The GOP’s America First Platform promises to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” Although the threat of deportation hangs over all non-citizens, it usually requires committing a serious crime. Republicans are now redefining what makes people deportable. The “Hamas Supporters Have No Home Here Act” proposes to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act by rendering any crime associated with protesting against Israel’s war crimes a reason for deportation. “Any crime” means anything that can be rendered criminal, including jaywalking during protests or covering protests as a journalist.
When the administrations of liberal-leaning universities selectively redefine what counts as a dangerous offense punishable by suspension (and thereby, deportation), and selectively target Black and Muslim immigrants, they contribute to the same xenophobic, undemocratic project of expelling immigrants based on political opinion, race, and nationality. By preemptively complying with Republican threats, university administrators strengthened totalitarian forces even before Trump was elected.
Students demanding divestment from military companies involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Palestine and beyond are not only advocating for human rights for all but are also fighting for the very soul of the university.
The administration has hinted that their repression of students is in the best interest of the university and an attempt to appease powerful actors. But authoritarian, undemocratic forces cannot be appeased. They must be resisted.
Students demanding divestment from military companies involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Palestine and beyond are not only advocating for human rights for all but are also fighting for the very soul of the university. They deserve immediate exoneration and reparations, even if donors and politicians demand retaliation. One thing is certain: universities will be better off suffering slashed budgets and smaller endowments than totalitarian rule or blackmail.
A Cornell University faculty member who stands with the students and believes that universities should not support genocides or profit from them.
