Editor’s Note: This piece represents the first in a four part series on the disciplinary process employed by Cornell’s administration against Momodou Taal, written by his faculty support. It has been slightly edited by The Sun for clarity, grammar and style, but, in the interest of transparency, otherwise preserved in its complete form.
On Monday, Sept. 23 Momodou Taal, a graduate student and worker in Africana Studies, was notified by the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards that he had been temporarily suspended from Cornell following alleged participation in a student protest that took place at a Sept. 18 career fair in the Statler Hotel.
Temporary suspension may sound relatively harmless but is one of the most severe punishments the University can impose. In its most extreme form, temporary suspension involves the student being banned from campus, de-enrolled from the university and, for an international student like Taal, subject to deportation by Homeland Security once the de-enrollment voids the student’s F-1 visa. The Student Code of Conduct allows “temporary suspensions” to be imposed summarily without first providing due process, but only when “immediate action is necessary to protect the Complainant or the University community against violence or threats of violence, or harm to health and safety.” Because “the underlying allegation of prohibited conduct has not yet been adjudicated on the merits,” an important condition is that “a Temporary Suspension may be imposed only when available less restrictive measures are reasonably deemed insufficient” to ensure this protection.
Taal’s alleged violations are for protest activity. What, then, justifies such drastic action? President Kotlikoff, addressing the Faculty Senate on Sept. 25, responded to questions about Taal’s suspension and possible deportation by inviting the audience to imagine an individual who violated the code, received one level of warning, violated again, received a referred sentence based on the promise not to violate again and then violated again. People who violate our procedures either so violently or so repeatedly that they are suspended and disenrolled, he concluded, will face visa consequences. Implied in this account is the premise that suspension and disenrollment followed multiple findings of guilt: a “three strikes” narrative that has been repeated multiple times by Provost Siliciano and President Kotlikoff in their communications with faculty.
In fact, Taal has not been found responsible for any code violations and none of the complaints allege any violent acts that harm public health or safety. While he has received three formal complaints alleging code violations, none of those complaints has resulted in a finding. None of these complaints have been fully investigated as prescribed by the Code of Conduct Procedures. All three remain in the “investigation” stage, and to date no evidence has yet been presented by the complainant.
As the three faculty members who served as Taal’s support persons during his disciplinary meetings, we wish to counter this inaccurate and misleading narrative.
Let us first explain how we came to serve in this role. A student who is charged with a violation of the Student Code of Conduct receives a notification from the OSCCS and is called to appear at a meeting. The student may request the presence of a Respondents’ Code Counselor — or, in the case of graduate students, a CGSU-UE representative—who is familiar with the Student Code of Conduct and serves as an advisor or counselor. The student may also be accompanied by a faculty support person, who takes notes and offers informal support. Any member of the faculty can serve in this role, but because these meetings are often called on very short notice, the student may appeal to a group of faculty who have volunteered to serve as support persons, have received basic orientation and training and happen to be free at the meeting time. This was the case for the three of us. With Taal’s permission we are writing to share our accounts, supported by written referrals and our contemporaneous notes, of what happened on the three occasions when Taal was the object of a disciplinary complaint.
Paul Fleming is a professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He served as Momodou Taal’s faculty advisor for his third complaint. He can be reached at [email protected]
Tracy McNulty is a professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. She served as Momodou Taal’s faculty advisor for his first complaint. She can be reached at [email protected]
Mostafa Minawi is a professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences. He served as Momodou Taal’s faculty advisor for his second complaint.. He can be reached at [email protected]