The student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into flashpoints of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it, and the right to speak out against it. This year, college and university campuses have become laboratories of repression where different administrative efforts to silence Palestine solidarity and antiwar demonstrators are being deployed. And that is playing out right now at Cornell University.

As Aaron Fernando writes at The Nation, “Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country, and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests.

Momodou Taal is a PhD candidate in Africana studies and a graduate student worker, attending Cornell under the F-1 visa program. In the last academic year, Taal joined student-led actions demanding that Cornell divest from industries complicit in Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza.”

The Cornell grad worker union, Cornell Graduate Students United-UE, released a statement condemning the university’s disciplinary actions against Taal, and is demanding the administration bargain with the union “over the effects of the discipline administered to Taal.” “CGSU-UE condemns Taal’s suspension, which represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers. The union is still fighting for just cause protections in discipline and discharge, due process for academic evaluations, strong academic freedom, and nondiscrimination protections inclusive of political affiliation and action, religious practice, and caste.” In this urgent episode, Max speaks about Cornell’s actions against Taal with two members of the CGSU-UE bargaining committee: Jenna Marvin, a third-year PhD student in the History of Art & Visual Studies at Cornell; and Jawuanna McAllister, a sixth-year PhD candidate in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell.

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Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Jawuanna McAllister:

Hi, my name’s Jawuanna. I’m a sixth year PhD candidate in molecular biology and genetics at Cornell. So I do a lot of stuff with cancer cells and I’m also a member of the C-G-S-U-U-E bargaining committee.

Jenna Marvin:

Hi, my name is Jenna Marvin. I am a third year PhD student in the department of the History of Art at Cornell University. I actually work on the history of American photography and like Joanna, I’m also a member of CGS U E’s bargaining committee.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership within in these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like You Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work that we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, your friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for folks you’d like us to talk to or subjects you’d like us to investigate and please support the work that we do at The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

My name is Maximillian Alvarez and we’ve got an urgent episode for y’all today. We are recording this on Tuesday, October 1st, and so I just want to say up top that circumstances may change by the time you hear this, but we are going to do our best to turn this episode around and get it published as soon as we can after we finish this recording. But today on Tuesday, October 1st, as we prepare to commemorate a year of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in the West Bank as Israel with the United States is full backing, drags the Middle East into an all-out war. The war here at home is ramping up on working people and people of conscience everywhere who are speaking out and taking action to try to stop the slaughter, or at least to pressure those in power to do so. Just as the student encampment movement last school year turned institutions of higher education into a flashpoint of struggle over Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, US support for it and the right to speak out against it, college and university campuses this year are at the bleeding edge of institutional efforts to silence and repress Gaza solidarity and anti-war demonstrators.

And that is playing out right now as we speak at Cornell University. As Aaron Fernando writes at the nation, and I’m going to quote this piece at length, quote, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests. Mama Dal is a PhD candidate in Africana studies and a graduate student worker attending Cornell under the F1 Visa program. In the last academic year, Taal joins student-led actions demanding that Cornell divest from industries complicit in Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza. Cornell student activists were not alone in launching public demonstrations across their college encampments took hold across the country. In response, some universities called in police to clear, often forcefully pro-Palestinian student protestors. But Cornell took a different approach during a year when it ostensibly prioritized free expression.

The university created a new policy to crack down on these types of protest first issued on January 24th, 2024. The interim expressive activities, policy limits when amplified sound can be used, delineates which objects are prohibited at collective campus actions like candles and sticks and subjects, some protestors to increased disciplinary action. By the end of the spring semester, six Cornell students including TAL face suspension for their pro-Palestinian activities. I’m trying to fight this to at least have an investigation and due process said tal, I’m not asking for anything special. I’m asking for Cornell to follow their own procedure. The Cornell Graduate Student Union, which is attempting to help Tall said no investigation was conducted before the discipline of temporary suspension was issued to Mama de. The Union issued a press release on Tuesday explaining that it is demanding to bargain with Cornell over the effects of the suspension.

The union said last spring. Cornell University signed a memorandum of agreement or MOA with C-G-S-U-E or Cornell graduate students United ue that gives the union the right to bargain over the effects of discipline of graduate workers on their working conditions effective immediately pursuant to the M-O-A-C-G-U-E issued a demand to bargain with Cornell administration over the effects of the discipline administered to tall C-G-S-U-U-E condemns tall suspension, which represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers. The union is still fighting for just cause protections and discipline and discharge due process for academic evaluations, strong academic freedom and non-discrimination protections, inclusive of political affiliation and action, religious practice and caste. So that is a lot of the context that we wanted to sort of provide for you guys up top. And we will of course link to Aaron Fernando’s piece in the nation so you could read more about it.

And I wouldn’t have to burden our guests today with explaining the whole context here because as I said at the top time is of the essence. And we do want to focus the second half of this conversation on where things stand right now as we record at Cornell and what folks can do right now to help and get involved. And so Joanna and Jenna from the Cornell Graduate Students Union are here to join us and help us unpack this important story. And thank you both so much for taking time to do this. I really appreciate it and I promise that that’s the most that folks are going to hear me talk at the top of the episode up here. I really wanted to turn things over to both of y’all and ask if, yeah, first if you could sort of take us back to last year, right when the student Antifa movement was really spreading to campuses, not just across the US but around the world, it felt like this was a really big step in the protest movement, and now we are facing a lot of the more sinister institutional backlash beyond just the immediate police led backlash that we saw on campuses like Columbia and more.

So can you both talk to us a little bit about how we got from there to here, and then we’ll talk about where things currently stand with Talls case and what the union is doing to fight it?

Jawuanna McAllister:

Yeah. Well first thank you again for having us. We’re really happy to be able to have a platform to share some of what’s going on at Cornell. Wish it was under different circumstances, but I think I speak for myself and Jenna when I say we’re both grateful that you made time for us, especially with the situation is evolving as quickly as it has been. So what I can say about last year is it’s actually interesting that you bring up some of the more overt forms of discipline and policing that were taking place across campuses. It’s actually one way that I think Cornell was different. So we are at Cornell’s main campus, which is in central New York in Ithaca, it’s college town. It’s pretty small, it’s rural for the most part. So a lot of what was taking place across the country we didn’t really have here in terms of overpolicing, especially with the student encampment in the spring. There were some flareups, but it never really got to the point where it was violent. Everything was entirely peaceful, at least from the side of the prop protestors.

But what was always present and I think now is sort of bubbling over and coming to the surface is some of these more insidious forms of repression and discipline and targeting of specific individuals who are perceived as leaders in this type of movement. And the censorship that we’re really seeing. It was taking place last semester, but now we’re just, it’s a continuation of what we had last semester. And I think one of the other shifts with Cornell is that we had a change in leadership. So our former provost is now the president of the university, our former president retired, take from that what you will. But so yeah, now we have a new president, Koff who has taken the helm and is really spearheading a lot of these more repressive tactics that he was able to get away with without as much attention I think in the past.

Jenna Marvin:

Yeah, I’ll jump in. And second Joanna, and of course, thank you for having us. We’re delighted to be here even under the difficult circumstances, but I really do want to highlight that change in leadership at Cornell. There was, I think a sense from all of us, either union members or activists that caught lakoff’s change of role from the provost to the president was going to lead to a real change intact or maybe even an intensification of what had been happening in the spring. And I think that our fears are being validated right now given what’s happening on campus. So that change of leadership I think is really key. You have a new president who will be an interim president, but is new nonetheless, who is trying to prove himself to higher up board of trustees, et cetera.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So let’s talk about, I guess how things have been moving in the new school year because it feels like I, and this is something that we’ve talked to students, graduate students and faculty who were involved with the different encampments last year with the coverage that we were doing here at the Real News. We spoke with folks at UCLA, university of Michigan, Columbia, Indiana, so on and so forth. And we were seeing that there were different kind of approaches that different administrations were taking. One university had snipers on the roof, the other university trying to make itself seem a little more like open students at Stanford won critical gains and concessions from the university. So this is definitely an intense and protracted struggle that has not had one single outcome. But what we have seen, especially heading into the new year, is that university administrations and the powers to which they answer be they on the donor side or the political side, have taken that time over the summer to really revamp their strategies for how to deal with, and when I say deal with that term’s carrying a lot of weight here, deal with these protests.

Some universities we’ve already seen are taking action, even disciplining or firing faculty. And now we have the case here at Cornell. So I wanted to ask if you could just sort of please tell us how things have gone this year. Did it feel markedly different walking onto campus at the beginning of this school year? And what has been the course of events that have led us to where we are right now and where do things currently stand right now?

Jawuanna McAllister:

Yeah, I think there was a sense from everyone on campus who’s been paying attention to events on campus that this year was going to be a little bit different and a little bit more intense. I believe it was the very first day of classes, I think it was on August 26th, the provost and new interim provost and new interim President Koff sent out an email to the entire student body and I believe the entire Cornell community outlining new guidelines for how discipline would be handled this semester for student activists. And it’s essentially this three tier system that’s more or less, as we’ve seen over the past week, just completely gone out the window where it is kind of like a three strike thing out. So first offense is, I guess I probably need to pull up the email, but the first offense is like a warning.

You get called into a conduct meeting with the student code of conduct office, and it’s a warning, the second offense, and it could just be an offense, could be, I don’t know, attending a protest, right? Attending a rally that’s going on a little too long per CUPD, Cornell University police’s discretion. Second defense is a non-academic suspension, which essentially bars people from participating in clubs and extracurriculars. And then the third would be more permanent or interim temporary suspension and academic suspension. So what’s happening to MOMU right now? The other change is that in response to some of the discipline that graduate workers in particular face in the spring where we had a number of international and just grads of various marginalized identities targeted for their participation in our encampment at Cornell were issued, they were suspended in response to that, graduate workers here organized a picket outside of a bargaining session, and that resulted in really demanding that the university bargain with us over that discipline.

And as a result of that, we got this memorandum of agreement, which we signed with the university in July. And this agreement essentially states that the university is obligated to bargain with us, bargain with our union over the effects of grad work or discipline. So you have this three tier system that the university is saying they’re going to abide by because there’s been a lot of questions about how disciplines made it out up until now because it’s been completely arbitrary. And our union has this MOA that we’ve signed with the university saying, you have to bargain with us. And as I think general can tell you more about things are not playing out how they should.

Jenna Marvin:

Yeah, I can talk a little bit more about the enforcement of the memorandum of agreement. It does feel like Cornell administration, like the head and the hand, are not talking on purpose. More than likely Cornell’s bargaining committee is composed of general counsel, faculty, and of course an outside negotiator as well. And so they are bargaining this memorandum of agreement with us beginning in May, which was a huge industry setting victory to win something that actually says your employer has to come to the bargaining table around really any kind of discipline that affects working conditions. So from the time we started bargaining that until July when we actually signed it, Cornell’s bargaining committee was working with C-G-S-U-U-E to hammer this out and it’s become final. And it’s a document that we are really proud of, not only for a victory for us, but for other graduate shops around the country.

So to see, I think we were all sort of waiting on bated breath to see how the university would handle the enforcement of the memorandum. And of course, the answer that we received is they are blatantly disregarding it. They have an obligation to bargain with us over any sort of discipline needed out that affects the terms and conditions of employment. And of course, in MoMA AL’S case, that is absolutely happening. Deen enrollment and the revoking of his visa alone constitutes a huge disruption to his terms and conditions of his work. So to have your bargaining committee actually bargain with the union to create this really, really clear, really, really, really clear guidelines for how discipline is to be handed down and how the union is to be involved in that process and then to completely disregard it, especially after sending out this three strikes email where due process is supposed to be a guarantee. It does feel like the president’s office is not communicating properly with the offices that actually are in charge of meeting out discipline. And it’s been very disappointing, to say the least from the union’s perspective.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Can I just ask a little more on that? I mean, I can’t imagine how they’re feeling right now, but what can you tell us about how Mama DE’s doing and how this is affecting them? For anyone out there listening who maybe is still asking those questions of like, well, why is this a labor issue? What are unions and grad workers have to do with Palestine? I guess what would you say to folks out there about why this is a labor issue and how this is affecting one of your members right now and their livelihood?

Jawuanna McAllister:

It’s very much a labor issue with the type of work that graduate workers do. We teach, we research, OU is a student in Africana studies, a grad worker in Africana studies. He can’t teach his classes right now because he’s been suspended. His students are missing out on all that he has to offer as an instructor because he can’t set foot on campus, he can’t do his job. So it’s very much a labor issue from a service level. And then you think about the types of things that graduate workers are being disciplined for, not only by participating in protest activity, but also just by teaching their subject matter in the classroom. I think Momu and a number of other graduate workers, just who I personally am aware of and have close friendships with, have reported some really troubling things about the response of the administration to the subject matter in their courses.

So this is really an issue of academic freedom as well, where you have people not only not having the freedom to express themselves really just on campus in general and oppose what’s happening in Palestine and the atrocities that they’re seeing, they can’t even teach about it as it relates to their courses, as it relates to their subject matter. That’s really scary at an institution that prides itself on Cornell. Being in an Ivy League institution, people pay a lot of money to come here, are really proud when they get in with an institution like Cornell with this type of reputation and really any institution, any, it just runs completely contrary to any institution of higher educations like educational and academic mission to be doing this. So it’s an issue of academic freedom, it’s an issue of worker autonomy and workers’ rights. And because we are workers, it’s very much a labor issue. Yeah,

Jenna Marvin:

Yeah. I’ve thought about this a lot in the last couple of days, and I don’t think there are many union members across industries in this country who would ever stand for the level of unilateral discipline from their employer that Cornell is meeting out to al right now. It is a fundamental union issue that your boss cannot exercise unilateral power over you. You get a say in your working conditions being hired and fired as part of your working condition. So this is an absolutely fundamental fight that unions, labor unions have been fighting for over 150 years in the United States. It’s absolutely crucial to our fight. And a union needs to be able to protect its workers from that complete unilateral bring down of power. And absolutely it is an academic freedom issue as well. To echo Joanna there, I work in the humanities. This is speaking of fundamental, it’s fundamental to what we do in the humanities is to teach about the horrors of history, to be frank, and to talk about what happens in the world today.

And that includes politics in all of its forms and it includes genocide. And to have students in the humanities anywhere across the university, but particularly right now in the humanities, I thinking maybe I shouldn’t teach this. I’m not really sure how that will be received by my students or I’m not sure who will find out about this. I hear that from my coworkers and that’s very scary. So what is happening to mom Al is absolutely a disgrace, but there are also many effects that trickle down from this. It’s about creating a culture of fear and when you workers are fearful, that is a union issue always.

Jawuanna McAllister:

There’s maybe one other thing that I just wanted to add to this that we haven’t, we’ve sort of talked around but haven’t actually spoken to directly, is a lot of people don’t understand what a grad worker union is because we are grad students and we also do work that makes the university run. So as Jenna has already highlighted, I think really eloquently, we teach, we do research on behalf of the university, but we’re also here taking classes. So we have these dual roles, and when the university disciplines workers under a as quote students or under the guise of academics, that is inextricable from our employment and our role as workers. So in mom’s case for example, when you are suspended as a student, you were also suspended and effectively fired from your employment. When you’re de enrolled as a student, you’re terminated. And to Jenna’s point earlier, there’s no other industry where that would be acceptable, where lack of due process or lack of just cause for termination because of something that is independent in the university’s eyes at least of your employment, is acceptable. And that’s also not a distinction that we really exist in practice. We’re one and the same. So I think that’s just maybe an important point to clarify for students. And we’re also workers and those things are inextricably linked.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh yeah. I mean, speaking as a former grad worker and member of University of Michigan, GEO, shout out to GEO. Yeah, we’re getting a lot of the education and practice in our coursework that we are then able to apply in our teaching work and be better educators. And lo and behold, we’re one and the same person learning and teaching at the same time. Holy shit. People can do more than one thing at once. And that I wanted to just kind of ask a quick question there because on the question of grad unions and grad labor struggles, I mean there is something sinister and kind of harrowingly that echoes one of the weapons of first resort that we tend to see during grad unionization efforts or grad strikes at universities is something that I’ve seen reporting on grad strikes and union efforts like across the country.

And I remember seeing myself as a tactic that the University of Michigan employed when I was a member of our graduate union there, international students have a sort of special place in the university’s calculus for how to instill fear and impose discipline and impose division within a bargaining unit. And I just wanted to ask if y’all could speak as union members about the fact that Amadou being an international student here is also a really important detail of the story, both in terms of what this discipline is going to mean for him personally, but also what him being an international student is allowing the university to do in perpetuating the chilling effect that y’all were talking about here. This is something that comes up all the time when grad students go on strike because universities will almost always like clockwork when a strike happens, they will send out an email notifying international students that if they’re not working, they could lose their visas and thus their immigration status. So could you please just speak to that for a second and then we’ll wrap up by asking what folks can do now to help?

Jawuanna McAllister:

Yeah, it’s not a surprise to anyone that when the boss wants to intimidate and instill fear, they go after the most vulnerable workers first. And that is our international students who make up approximately 50% of our membership, 50% of our bargaining unit. It’s an intimidation tactic through and through. It is, yeah, I don’t really have much more to add to that other than we see it for exactly what it is. And I think what’s been really heartening is to see the outrage from our international workers as well as the broader Cornell community. I think the response from the community is really demonstrating, and by community I mean on campus and then also more broadly nationwide, demonstrating to our workers here that people are not just going to sit by and accept this. Our union will not just sit by and let one of our own be disciplined and effectively have this visa status revoked and then effectively be deported. We’re not just going to sit by and allow that to happen. And I think that’s an important thing for that 50% of our unit to really see that we stand behind them 100%.

Jenna Marvin:

Yeah. I will add that one of the things that makes this situation around intimidation of international students at Cornell International workers incredibly divisive is that one of Cornell’s founding principles is any person, any study all over this campus. I see posters of it when I walked on the hall on my workspace. And so to sort of rest on the prestige of having 50% of our bargaining unit members be international workers who are some of the best, the brightest and the most generous colleagues ever, but then turn that right around and make people feel scared and to make people more vulnerable and for Cornell’s administration to feel like they have leverage or kind of control over international workers is really, really disappointing, particularly given its sort of founding ethos.

And just to echo, Joanna, if we have 50% of our bargaining unit members here on Visas, you better be sure that we we’re going to fight for one of our members being disciplined and possibly fired and losing his visa. If we don’t fight for that, what are we for? Right? This has always been integral to our organizing. It has always been integral to the contract that we are currently negotiating with Cornell. So it’s perhaps even as far as the numbers, even more of an issue here at Cornell than it’s if maybe comparable institutions in the United States.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, Joanna, Jenna, I want to thank you both again so much for taking time to chat with me. I really appreciate it and I just wanted to give y all the final word here and ask if you could let our listeners know what happens now and what the union is trying to do, what the campus community is doing to stand against this, and what folks out there who are listening to this, what they can do to stay up to date on this and what they can do to get involved themselves.

Jawuanna McAllister:

Yeah, I can go ahead and plug a few things. So as you mentioned before we started recording, we have a rally for workplace justice tomorrow Wednesday, what is tomorrow, October 2nd at noon, we will be marching from one of the buildings near central campus down to the administrative building, demanding that the university bargain with us over the effects of Madu tile suspension, and also demanding that the university give us just cause and due process when it comes to these various forms of discipline, along with protections for academic freedom and non-discrimination when it comes to political speech and activity, caste, international workers rights. These are all things that are really, really integral to our union. So that’s tomorrow, and we’ll have members of the community there, faculty, some folks from our A UP chapter will be joining us, which is exciting. So it’s really, it’s going to be a great event if anyone is in the, well, I don’t think you’ll have this released by the time this goes out, so you can cut that part. I’m just going to say if anyone’s here, they can feel free to come up to campus, but I doubt anyone will be here. And then Jenna, do you want to take some of the other things that we have going on right now?

Jenna Marvin:

Sure. I mean, for those people who are not in Ithaca and want to stay up to date, we are keeping people up to date with our Instagram. That’s at Cornell gsu. We’re trying to be as on top of the developing situation as we can. So that’s one avenue to stay informed. We have a bargaining session. CGSU will sit across the table from Cornell’s bargaining committee on Wednesday, October the ninth. And so look out for news around that there may be some coordinated action as the situation develops. We’re still thinking about that, but more news to come as the bargaining committee that Joanna and I are part of, sort of goes to sit at the table again with Cornell’s representatives given what has unfolded since our last session about two weeks ago. So more news to come stay informed. Instagram’s a great way to do it. And if you happen to be around for a rally tomorrow, come on out, have a chant, it’ll be cathartic.

Jawuanna McAllister:

I have two more things to plug. We should have made a list ahead of this. So we have an action network petition that UE National has just helped us launch earlier today. So if you are a member of a local, any local doesn’t have to be ue, please, please, please check out our social media and the UE national socials and you should be able to find that petition. We can also send you the link max and you can share that. And then we also have different petitions for different groups depending on what your affiliation is. So we have one that’s specific to grad locals. So please reach out to us. You can either DM us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can follow up with us at bc@cornellgradunion.org with any questions. Or we should just have questions about how to support or want to get access to any of those resources. We can send them to you directly through that email as well. Cornell GSU on socials?

Jenna Marvin:

I think so. That’s the Instagram.

Jawuanna McAllister:

We need Cornell to bargain with us. We have this MOA, it’s time for Cornell to hold up their end of that signed agreement and bargain with us over, not just mom do suspension, but any grad worker discipline under these policies. Me to set the table.

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