My lowest moment in academia was shortly after the 9-11 terrorist attacks when there was Arab phobia all over the country. I was a graduate student in the then Department of African Languages and Literature at University of Wisconsin Madison. US government officials would walk into our classrooms and remove Arab students from the classroom, whisking them away to Milwaukee for processing. Our professors would carry on teaching as if nothing had happened. And of course — we — the remaining students, followed their example.
Today, I am 23 years older. I understand very well that silence is the best friend to injustice.
Today, the interim president of Cornell University brings down the whole multibillion machinery to bear down on one Muslim and black African graduate international student. Momodou Taal is suspended as the University knows full well that the next step is deportation. This action is like destroying a bridge and then saying you are not responsible for the drivers that plunge into the roaring waters below.
But even the optics of a powerful and mostly white institution going after an international black Muslim student should have at least given Kotlikoff pause and ask for what we, from Trump’s “shithole countries,” call a kangaroo court — where the outcome is already decided before the motions of a court hearing. Momodou did not even get a sham trial.
The protests were on September 18th, the following day, Taal gets an email from Cornell’s Police Chief telling him he had been referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. And then on the 23rd he is informed that he has been suspended. On the 26th, his appeal to Ryan Lombardi, Vice President for Student and Campus Life, is denied.
No one can look at the swiftness after barely a week and not ask for due process as a minimum.As far I know, the Graduate Students Union were not informed or involved. Momodou has yet to defend himself.
Okay, stack that up against Momodou Taal’s and his co-conspirators’ alleged acts of high Cornell treason. This in part a statement released from the president’s office:
“The protesters loudly marched through the hotel lobby and up the stairs, frightening students, staff, and recruiters…they forced their way past additional CUPD officers at the entrance to the Statler Ballroom, knocking off an officer’s body-worn camera…the demonstrators screamed into bullhorns and banged cymbals, pots and pans, resulting in medical complaints of potential hearing loss. The protesters…alarmed students who had been talking with employers. These intimidating tactics have no place in a university and violate our commitments to each other. Actions have consequences, on campus and in the criminal justice system.”
One must step back and watch the Kotlikoff acrobatics in awe. The protestors (note he does not say student protestors) loudness frightened people, a large crowd filing into the building knocked off (it does not sound deliberate or malicious) an officer’s body-cam, and there is potential hearing loss. None of these are deportable actions or criminal acts by any standards.
What is going on here?
For one, Kotlikoff is sending a message to every single international student at Cornell: be quiet and study. More precisely, our Cornell motto of “any person, any study” for Kotlikoff appears to be “Any American [preferably but not necessarily white] Person, Any Study…but quietly, please.” Jokes aside, the message to the whole campus is the same: silence or else…
The larger crime, though, is that Momodou Taal is speaking his conscience against Israel that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, bombed hospitals and universities, maimed thousands and upended millions of lives. Gaza essentially is rubble. And in Lebanon, in what one doctor called an “act of mass mutilation” and former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has called terrorism, Israel used pagers and walkie talkies as explosive devices.
I stand on the principle that no form of injustice can warrant the killing of civilians. I cannot condone Hamas killing 1,200 Israelis and taking hostages. But surely, the long-term occupation and oppression of Palestinians, the accepted fact by many including the late Bishop Tutu and the International Court of Justice that Israel is an apartheid state, should disturb our conscience. And that the same apartheid state is now committing genocide. How can we not stand alongside our protesting students?
The Moi dictatorship in 1990 encouraged silence under an organizing philosophy. Whereas Moi’s philosophy was Peace, Love and Unity, President Kotlikoff’s is university neutrality. His statement in part reads, “administrative actions must be consistent and content neutral. In furtherance of institutional neutrality and deference to the many and diverse views in the Cornell community, the President and Provost will refrain from opining on national or global events that do not directly impact the university.”
In principle this sounds, well, very neutral. But the students and people of conscience are saying our big red Cornell Bus is parked in neutral on railway tracks and a speeding train (or could be slow moving) is coming our way. They are telling us we cannot remain parked in neutral for much longer, either move forward or go backwards but we cannot remain where we are. And neutrality is support for more death. Aren’t the 41,000 Palestinian dead more than enough to make us shift into first or reverse gear?
I do hope tenured faculty will not choose silence as our vocal students, staff and untenured faculty come under the scrutiny of the Kotlikoff regime. Injustice festers and thrives to the extent we remain silent.
If the Cornell administration signs off on what becomes an international student’s deportation without understanding how that undermines the confidence of international students, staff and faculty, people of color and the morale of the campus in general, and the extent to which this has damaged Cornell’s national and international reputation, then the problem might not be the protesting students but with the administration itself.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is a Professor in the Literatures in English Department at Cornell. He is the co-founder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Writing. He can be reached at [email protected].
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