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September 25, 2024 - 10:20am
Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell University, has been suspended for the second time for his role in anti-Israel campus protests, and may now have to leave the US or face deportation. The move marks an inflection point as elite American colleges begin penalising disruptive and rule-breaking protests.
Last week, protesters targeted a campus job fair because of the presence of weapons manufacturers. Cornell responded with a stern rebuke, noting that, in addition to the event being shut down, attendees experienced potential hearing loss as a result of the use of bullhorns, screaming and the banging of pots and pans. Alongside the suspension, the university is revoking Taal’s visa, meaning he’ll no longer be able to stay in the US legally, according to the Cornell Sun. He was previously one of four students suspended in the spring over an unauthorised encampment protest, and now accuses Cornell of a “targeted campaign of intimidation and harassment” against him.
Cornell clarified in a statement to UnHerd that “universities can disallow enrolment and bar a student from campus, but do not have deportation powers”. However, the university is required by law to terminate a student visa when that student is no longer enrolled due to disciplinary measures, as is the case for Taal. Without a visa, he will soon become eligible for deportation unless he first leaves voluntarily.
Following a turbulent year rife with rule-breaking student demonstrations, Cornell announced policy changes last month aimed at curtailing protests and extricating the university from the Israel-Palestine issue, which pitted some major donors against progressive student groups. Cornell responded by adopting a policy of institutional neutrality, a sharp turn from past years during which the president has released official statements in response to hot-button events such as the death of George Floyd.
Other elite schools are taking a similarly stern approach to campus protests. Harvard announced in late August that it would call in the police against disruptive demonstrations, and the university’s president warned that students must be “prepared to be held accountable” for breaking the rules. Meanwhile, Stanford banned campus encampments this month and in August Yale announced a series of rules restricting campus protests, including an 11pm curfew for events, restrictions on chalking, posters and projections, and a ban on sleeping outdoors overnight. Apparently aware of the surge in protest activity during final exams, the school also banned protests in the heart of campus throughout the month of May.
Ivy League universities pushing back against progressive activism marks a sea change in the culture wars. Whereas these colleges and their predominantly Left-leaning staff were once viewed as bastions of progressivism, the disruptive nature of the past year’s protests, combined with intense pushback from pro-Israel donors, has forced university leaders into positions of restraint.
“These intimidating tactics have no place in a university and violate our commitments to each other”, Cornell said in an official statement last week. “Actions have consequences, on campus and in the criminal justice system.”
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SubscribeRevoking Taal’s visa doesn’t mean he’ll be deported. It means he will join the rolls of 10 million+ illegal immigrants. There’s a huge percentage of illegal immigrants who came here legally and remained after their temporary citizenship was revoked or ended naturally, they’re not all border hoppers.
The number is 11 million and no matter how many more enter…the figure never changes!
Dude, it’s an estimate, a guess. No one knows – that’s part of the problem.
T Bone was being ironic. It was a comment on U.S. media’s lazy repetition that the number of illegals immigrants is always 11 million.
This has been US media’s cited figure since the 1980s, all the way up until the last year or so, when evidence to the contrary has become undeniable.
Dude died in 2000
False. Dude abides.
24 million illegals the last time I checked.
Trump will track him down and kick him out.
But will his father keep sending money?
Finally.
Indeed. Money talks.
So does the prospect of returning to some Third World hell.
Indeed! Unfortunately UK universities show no sign of following suit thanks to our left wing government which is more interested in what freebies they can get than they are in solving the systemic problems that have built up over the past 2 decades.
Don’t overlook the almost 100% Left-Wing composition of the academic staff at UK universities – many of them inclined towards the Marxist end of the spectrum.
No free speech for them = freeze the accounts of the Canadian truckers.
You can’t have free speech a la carte.
It is not the students’ speech which is being punished, but their intimidation, bullying and disruption of other students.
That’s exactly what Trudeau said about the truckers.
Except in Trudeau’s case it was a demonstrable lie, while the students really did indulge self-righteously in intimidation of other students. And the university turned a bind eye for many weeks only acted because of public disgust at its complicity.
Agree…long overdue.
But the actions of these Universities strikes me as un-enthusiastic. They are not doing it because it’s something they believe at their core. They are just reacting.
A good reaction in its effect, but let’s not forget who they are. I don’t think that has changed.
The title seems misleading and does not represent the gist of the article. Personally, I think it is a good move from the universities albeit a little late.
Exactly. Where were they in 2020??
Hurrah!
Long overdue, and unfortunately, may end as just a token gesture of accountability. There are vast sums flowing into American universities from Hamas-sympathetic countries such as Qatar, little of which is accounted for, plus international students are cash cows for university coffers.
“Ivy League universities pushing back against progressive activism marks a sea change in the culture wars.”
Perhaps. But it could also be yet another turn of the screw toward increasing elite control of all forms of dissent. Sure, some of us dislike “progressive activism” disrupting university life, but…well…maybe they should have done that in the 1960s. That they are only doing it now doesn’t necessarily indicate they don’t like the “progessive” disturbance: they don’t like disturbance to their own ideological control no matter where it comes from.
The Ivy League isn’t under student control, and never was. Who do you think is really in charge, anyway?
Who?
Donors and boards of trustees. There’s a sense in which even elite universities are just the playtoys of the rich.
That’s probably true. Though it makes you wonder why the universities were so pliant for so long? Is all that money anti-semitic or pro Hamas? So to what degree do they control the universities?
You don’t know your history. There was plenty of pushback in the 60’s and 70’s. I remember the smell and sting of pepper spray.
Yes, that’s certainly true. And Kent State wasn’t a cakewalk. But doesn’t that actually show my main point: that the current “pushback” doesn’t constitute a “sea change” like the article says? There has always been an establishment pushback, and always in their own interests, which don’t necessarily run along left / right lines.
I agree with you. This is not a sea change.
These intimidating tactics have no place in a university
Meaningless platitudes. They have no place anywhere but they let it happen. What do they really think? They flip-flop from month to month. These people have no moral compass and as you say act in their own interests.
Consequences.
High time. Let’s hope UK unis follow suit. It’s disgraceful that this has been allowed to carry on for so long, and that those in charge have been too spineless to resist.
Clearly he’s not there for the education
Did the permanent adult staff finally realize that they’re the ones running the place and not the transient childlike students? Free speech and expression are fine things, but they are to be exercised within set parameters. You don’t get to set up an encampment just because. You don’t get to disrupt events and violate the rights of others because you feel like it. Some of these students are going to be in for a rude awakening when, if, they enter the workforce.
Is there anything more offensive to citizens of a country when foreigners enter illegally and then protest against the policies and culture of that country? And even publicly burn the flag of the host country!
I heard a radio ad yesterday about the city of Chicago seeking translators for several languages to help with November’s election! Imagine moving to a country, not bothering to learn the language, nor adopt its culture or learn it’s history and then be allowed to vote in elections.
Effrontery is the least of their crimes. Begin with murder, rape and robbery and work your way down.
Good. First of what should be 10,000.
If you’re not a permanent resident and you commit a crime, you should be gone.
Free speech and right to assembly should be allowed under the First to all. Harassment and intimidation not so much, as it violates others’ rights. Anyway, I hear Gambia is pretty, pretty nice this time of year.
Good riddance. Eff off back to the 3rd world
I imagine the “pushback” is only against certain vocal groups, not all of those being a damned nuisance but whose “cause” is “approved” by the university authorities.
So, to that extent Taal is absolutely right. Having said which, the protest should surely have been at the headquarters of said weapons manufacturers not a job fair…but that would be a much harder task and easy targets are what such “protesters” go for…no hard slog for them.
A difficult one to call but it reflects the fact that students believed themselves to be exempt from the consequences of their actions. Now that they know they will not be, we will see what happens on campuses. How will idealism stack up against careerism?
It’s encouraging how a little heat applied to academic administrative spines serves to stiffen them. More, please.
It is not a question of free speech because only Israel’s actions irked them. This make these protests totally unprincipled and therefore they amount to mob violence. Surely the universities would not allow KKK to protest against admittance of black students, for instance.
This feeble effort is the most that any college leader can or wants to do about antisemitism and general anti-white hatred.
If you want to know Cornell’s position or non-position on anything, look at what Harvard’s was six months earlier.
About time. Hamas supporters everywhere in Western society should be deported if possible.