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October 31, 2024

SUSPENDED STUDENTS | To President Kotlikoff: Not Your Foot

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In an Oct. 29 op-ed in The Sun titled “Whose Foot?,” Cornell Interim President Michael Kotlikoff blamed students for having a “fundamental misunderstanding” about free speech on campus and said that the administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators is both legally and morally justified. “Free expression remains fully protected at Cornell,” President Kotlikoff wrote, while arguing that it is pro-Palestinian student demonstrators who “suppress the speech of others.”

This turns reality on its head. In recent weeks, Cornell’s administration attempted to effectively deport a graduate student, Momodou Taal, without any hearing or investigation. It is calling faculty members into meetings with Human Resources to ask them about their involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. At a Zoom meeting with a Zionist group earlier this month, VP of University Relations Joel Malina admitted that the administration is surveilling what professors and graduate students say about Israel, “scrutinizing” their in-class behavior. Now it is threatening students with three-year bans for engaging in protest and treating “temporary suspension” like pre-trial detention, denying students the right to present evidence, confront witnesses and prove their cases in a timely manner. And the students are the ones suppressing free speech?

As for President Kotlikoff’s claims that “no one has been referred for their speech,” this is belied by the one-sided treatment of opponents of genocide. The University administration’s actions are plainly aimed at suppressing only some speech: the speech of those who oppose the Biden-Harris administration’s involvement in the genocide and who watch in horror as the death toll continues to climb each and every day.

President Kotlikoff tells us we “misunderstand” free speech and quotes Thomas Jefferson’s April 19, 1814 letter to Nicolas Dufief to justify the administration’s actions and present students — not the administration — as violating free speech. Permit us to educate you, President Kotlikoff, on what this great revolutionary stood for. 

Thomas Jefferson’s letter was a scathing denunciation of censorship by Philadelphia police of a book by Regnault de Bécourt containing views that authorities considered “blasphemous” against religion. Jefferson — author of the Declaration of Independence and opponent of the censorious Alien and Sedition Acts — asked incredulously, “Are we to have a Censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy?” He railed against authorities who would “dogmatize” peoples’ opinions to suppress views that authorities do not like. Then he ridiculed those in positions of power who claim to know what is best for their subjects, asking: “Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?”

We answer: Not yours, President Kotlikoff, not the Board of Trustees and not the network of powerful donors from the two parties, Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, either.

Consider the broader context of the administration’s attack on free speech. In less than a week, a president may be elected who has promised to disregard the outcome of the election, establish a dictatorship, overturn the constitution and abolish free speech. Trump says he will unleash the military against “the enemy within” and says he wants pro-Palestinian demonstrators “deported” and locked up. The universities across the nation which are arresting and suspending students for peaceful speech activity are only facilitating Trump’s attacks on democracy. 

On the eve of what may be America’s last election, we appeal to all readers to stand against attacks on democratic rights whether they come from Trump, Kotlikoff or anyone else. All across the country, there is a battle taking place for free speech and the future of university education. Swarthmore students face expulsion for using bullhorns, Penn police launched an early-morning raid on a student’s home, Harvard banned silent library “study-ins” and is actively intimidating faculty over their speech. At Muhlenberg College, a tenured professor was fired for social media posts about the genocide. 

None of this will deter the worldwide struggle for Palestinian liberation. All the universities in Gaza have been destroyed, and Israel’s crimes grow worse each day. To all who stand for education and democratic rights, join us in calling for an end to Cornell’s efforts to intimidate pro-Palestinian speech. At Cornell, this means no more misuse of the “temporary suspension” process to banish students without due process, an end to disproportionate punishment of peaceful protestors and the dropping of baseless complaints against students for raising their voices against genocide.

Eric Lee, a Michigan-based immigration attorney, specializes in appellate advocacy and has won landmark cases protecting immigrant rights and reuniting families. Lee is currently providing legal assistance to suspended Cornell students. 

Written and submitted on behalf of 14 students facing discipline for participating in pro-Palestinian protests at Statler Hall on Sept. 18.