The University on Wednesday banned four pro-Palestinian student activists from campus for three years, according to a press release from the Coalition for Multual Liberation, a student-led activist group. The suspended students can appeal the decision.
The suspensions stem from a Sept. 18 pro-Palestinian protest that shut down a career fair in Statler Hotel featuring defense contractors Boeing and L3Harris. According to the University, protesters “physically forced their way” through two lines of police “with the full knowledge that they were violating policy.” The University previously said it had identified 19 participants in that disruptive protest and referred them for disciplinary action.
The Sun talked to two of the banned student activists who fear their undergraduate careers will be upended.
Jacob Berman ’25, the vice president of Jewish Voice for Peace, was served his three-year no-trespass order on Wednesday in a one-on-one disciplinary meeting with Christina Liang, who directs the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. Berman said Liang told him that in three weeks he will be automatically disenrolled from his classes and that he can now only enter campus to go to Cornell Health.
“I asked for a carve-out to attend Shabbat services, which I help lead [for JVP],” Berman said, adding that Liang denied his request to participate in any on-campus religious services.
Berman recalled that Liang told him during their meeting that the University issued the no-trespass order because he had pushed another protester into a campus police officer at the career fair protest, citing a video of the event that appeared on social media. Berman said that the University has yet to show him the video and that the incident was the accidental result of a crowd surge.
“This doesn’t stop with Taal,” Berman said, referring to Momodou Taal, the international graduate student who garnered worldwide media attention after Cornell suspended him for participating in the career fair shutdown. “It’s a scare tactic. … Students should not be afraid of speaking out when the University is frankly going back on its promise of free speech.”
An OSCCS representative declined to comment. A University spokesperson referred The Sun to an Oct. 10 statement in which Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina explained that students facing punishment under Cornell’s interim protest policy can appeal decisions or resolve them through discussions with OSCCS.
“Interim measures remain in place to protect the University community, including protecting ongoing activities essential to the mission of the University,” Malina wrote.
Atakan Deviren ’27, former co-chair of Cornell’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, is among the four students barred from campus for three years. Deviren’s suspension comes after he was arrested last week, along with two others, for not adhering to police’s orders to remain outside of the Statler Hotel and pushing past officers who were guarding the entrance of the building according to a Cornell University Police informational release.
Like Berman, Liang ordered Deviren to an in-person meeting on Wednesday, where she served him a no-trespass order. Deviren said Liang refused to tell him what specific charges the University was disciplining him for.
“They don’t have to have any evidence of wrongdoing,” Deviren claimed. “They can essentially just do whatever they want, and I am at the mercy of the school.”
Deviren remains defiant. Compared to the “thousands upon thousands of people [who] are dying in Gaza,” he called his suspension “a drop in the bucket.”
“They want to break my spirit,” Deviren said. “But I won’t let them.”
Ximena Balli and Aarush Rompally are Sun contributors and can be reached at xsb2@cornell.edu and arr252@cornell.edu.
