Nick Wilson ’26, Bianca Waked grad and Momodou Taal grad — three of the four temporarily suspended students — addressed fellow demonstrators at the Arts Quad encampment yesterday following news of their suspensions.
“In high school I discovered my passion, which was community organizing for a better world. I told Cornell University that’s why I wanted to be here,” Wilson told the crowd. “So I came to campus and I organized — and for this Cornell suspended me.”
“As I keep telling everybody, you don’t have to ask me if I’m okay, because I’m fine,” Waked told the crowd. “You know who’s not okay? The people in Gaza. The people who have lost their parents, and children.”
“So yeah, I’ve been suspended — but every night, before I go to bed, I say to myself if I get to live until my eighties, ‘will I ever regret going this hard for Palestine?’ and I won’t,” Taal told the crowd. “While I love all the support and solidarity from faculty, from my comrades, from my peers, please don’t let this become about any one of us. This is about a genocide.”
Filmed by Nina Davis
Edited by Marian Caballo