When former respondents’ codes counselor Calder Lewis J.D. ’25 joined the Office of the Respondents Code Counselors in 2023, he said that he quickly came to realize that the sharp increase in the number of students being disciplined with temporary suspensions was out of the ordinary.
“There really were no temporary suspensions, at least from the [Office of] Student Conduct [and Community Standards] before that [academic] year of 2023-2024,” Lewis said. “Once [the temporary suspensions] started coming in, older people in the office were like, ‘Yeah, these are pretty unheard of, we’ve had some pretty crazy cases in our office, but no temporary suspensions, at least for individual students, that we’ve seen.’”
The Student Code of Conduct Procedures states that in an ongoing disciplinary case against a student, the student may be temporarily suspended when “immediate action is necessary to protect the Complainant or the University community” and when less restrictive measures are deemed insufficient. Temporary suspension can be from campus premises, class attendance and/or “the withdrawal of any or all University privileges and services.”
Temporary suspensions can be academic or non-academic. According to Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi in an Oct. 8 Faculty Senate meeting, an academic temporary suspension prohibits a student from attending class and halts their academic progress, whereas a non-academic temporary suspension permits a student to attend class and continue their academic progress.
The Office of the RCCs, which Lewis worked for until spring 2025, provides free assistance to Cornell community members accused of violating the Student Code of Conduct. Based on data from an OSCCS Annual Report for the 2023-2024 academic year prepared by Christina Liang, senior associate dean of students and director of the OSCCS, and data provided by OSCCS during the Oct. 8 Faculty Senate meeting, the number of temporary suspensions for students jumped from zero from 2022-2023 to nine from 2023-2024 and to 21 from 2024-2025.
According to Lewis, the number of temporary suspensions from 2024-2025 should include the nine students who faced “interim action” for their participation in the disruption to the Pathways to Peace event in March, since the restrictions included in their “interim action” were the same as the restrictions included in a temporary suspension, Lewis said. During the event, at least 17 pro-Palestinian attendees were arrested or detained for disrupting a panel discussion that brought together four experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a “wide-ranging conversation” on “potential paths forward for the people of Israel and Palestine,” according to the event’s description.
In a letter obtained by The Sun from Liang notifying a student of the “interim action” they faced for participating in the Pathways to Peace disruption, the student was allowed to remain in their housing and use on-campus dining facilities, but was restricted from being on campus for any purpose other than class. If the nine students who faced “interim action” were included in the number of temporary suspensions issued from 2024-2025, the total count would reach 30.
A University spokesperson declined to comment on how OSCCS distinguished between “interim action” and “temporary suspension” or why OSCCS did not include the nine students who faced interim action in their count of students who were issued temporary suspensions.
Lewis estimated that 85 percent of students who faced a temporary suspension during his time as an RCC were political protesters. Dalton Sousa J.D. ’25, who also served as a RCC from fall 2023 to spring 2025, estimated that this number was between 75 to 85 percent.
On Friday, the voting period will open for the upcoming referendum on the Code. A referendum polls the student body on two "yes-or-no" questions via email. If a majority of participants vote in favor of the questions, then the Student Assembly will communicate the results to the Office of the President, who has 30 days to respond accordingly.
In light of referendum voting, The Sun interviewed current and former RCCs to discuss their experiences supporting students who faced temporary suspensions and how they think the Code and Procedures should be revised.
Facing a Temporary Suspension
According to the Procedures, students can be temporarily suspended with consideration to factors including whether the student has a history of violent behaviour, if this is a repeat offense or if there “exists reasonable basis for concern over possible harm to the safety of others involved or the campus community generally.”
Lewis shared that he estimates that during his time as an RCC from fall 2023 to spring 2025, around 80 percent of the temporarily suspended students were not charged with violence or destructive conduct and around 95 percent of them had no prior conduct record.
The Sun reached out to a University spokesperson to clarify on what grounds student protesters were being charged for Code violations. The University spokesperson referred The Sun to the Oct. 9 Student Assembly meeting in which Lombardi and Kotlikoff fielded questions from students about the Code.
In the Oct. 9 Student Assembly meeting, one member of the Assembly asked Kotlikoff how the University’s use of temporary suspensions, presumably in reference to student protesters, was compliant with the Procedures. Kotlikoff explained that, in addition to preventing direct violence, “emergency measures” are used to try and “protect the community” in issues where the “University is liable for not being consistent with its legal responsibilities.”
“The University is subject to federal laws to protect individuals’ civil rights, and if those civil rights are violated, the University is liable for not being consistent with federal civil rights law,” Kotlikoff said at the Oct. 9 Assembly meeting. “So you can imagine a situation where an individual commits a civil rights violation, commits a Title Six violation, or a Title Nine violation or a Title Seven violation, and that process and that results in a liability to the institution or the community, and it is not adjudicated quickly, etc, that issue that is when an interim suspension or emergency measure is relevant for The University.”
President Kotlikoff added that temporary suspensions are used “very sparingly.”
Avery Newcom J.D. ’26, one of the current RCCs, said that it has been frustrating to witness “the disparate application of temporary suspensions.”
“One student who committed sexual assault may not be temporarily suspended, while another student who chanted during a protest may be,” Newcom wrote in an email sent to The Sun. “Temporary suspensions are an immense power, intended for situations involving an immediate, legitimate threat. Protesters do not meet that standard.”
Lewis shared that for a majority of these temporarily suspended students, who are not alleged to have committed violence and for whom this is the first time they are getting “in trouble” at Cornell, the weight of the temporary suspension is highly stressful.
“A lot of them are really freaked out in the beginning,” Lewis said. “They’re wondering, what is this going to mean for my classes, their social life — everything’s really upended on that day.”
The specific prohibitions for temporarily suspended students vary from case to case according to the discretion of OSCCS, Lewis said. According to Lewis, most temporarily suspended students were allowed to attend classes but had limited access to campus, “pushed to really the edge of campus life.”
“The line that the Conduct Office would use is they want to minimize your presence on campus until the case is resolved,” Lewis said.
The Sun also asked a University spokesperson if they could verify whether this language was used by OSCCS. The representative referred The Sun to the video guide linked on the Code webpage that was shared in a recent all-student email.
The video guide explains the Code and processes of the student conduct process but does not discuss temporary suspensions. The Sun also reached out to OSCCS about whether this was an accurate characterization of the temporary suspension provisions, and the office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Lewis said that the differing instructions that students received regarding their restrictions to campus struck the students as “arbitrary.”
“These students are basically told, you’re too dangerous or too risky to be on campus for a club meeting and office hours with the professor, but you can be on campus for your classes and study then, but you can’t study after your classes,” Lewis said. “Like some of them who were even involved in the same sort of alleged conduct would get different restrictions, like some people could go to the gym, some people couldn’t, some couldn’t work campus jobs, just because they were restricted from that part of campus while they worked.”
A University spokesperson declined to specifically respond to why the provisions for temporary suspensions differ between students and referred The Sun to the video guide on the Code.
Being Offered the ‘Alternate Resolution’
According to the Procedures, either the respondent or the director of the OSCCS may seek to resolve a formal complaint through an “alternate resolution” instead of a full hearing before the University Hearing and Review Panel, which is independent from OSCCS and the central administration. Additionally, the Procedures state that “participation in Alternate Resolution is entirely voluntary; the Director will neither pressure nor compel either party to participate in the process or to agree to any specific terms.” The alternative resolution happens after students receive their initial notification of the temporary suspension.
The student has the choice of whether to accept the alternative resolution or wait for a full hearing. At the Oct. 9 Assembly meeting, Lombardi said that both parties have to agree to the outcome of the agreement, and if the student does not agree with the terms, then the student has the opportunity to wait for the full hearing process.
Lombardi said that the full hearing process is independent of the administration. However, Karen Vicks serves as the Hearing Panel Chair in the OSCCS, where she "works closely with the University Hearing and Review Panel," according to the Student and Campus life website. According to the Procedures, the Panel Chair can reschedule a hearing unilaterally when there is a "reasonable cause to do so" and decides whether additional witnesses or evidence are admissible.
According to Lewis, in cases of a temporary suspension, it is usually the student who reaches out to OSCCS first. The process requires multiple correspondences between the student and OSCCS and typically takes “weeks to a month,” according to Lewis. “It sometimes takes longer than that because of negotiating back and forth and slow responses,” Lewis added.
Accepting the agreement of the alternative resolution required students to admit that they had committed the conduct they were initially charged with and to agree that they would not violate the Code again before being allowed to return to campus. A majority of temporary suspension cases did not go to a hearing and were instead resolved through an alternate resolution, according to Sousa and Lewis.
Lewis estimated that the average time a temporarily suspended student waits before their hearing is around 246 days. While Sousa said that he does not know the average length of time between the initial letter from OSCCS and the hearing, he said that typically “it would be between 6-8 months later, depending on the charge.”
When asked why the time period between the initial temporary suspension and the full hearing is so long, a University spokesperson wrote that, "How an individual case progresses depends on the specific circumstances of the incident and the process preferences of the parties involved resulting in unique and varied individualized resolution timelines."
Lewis said that students facing temporary suspensions often feel like the alternate resolution is preferable to waiting for the full hearing.
“Word gets around campus among a lot of these students, and they know that, you know, most people’s investigations never even really start,” Lewis said. “[The students] just go pretty much straight to the alternate resolution, because the deals that they get 一 oftentimes the final punishment that they agreed to in an alternate resolution is a lot less severe than the interim measure of the temporary suspension.”
Sousa said that another reason why students accepted the alternate agreement may have been the likelihood of not being found guilty for their violations had they gone through to the full hearing.
Newcom explained that seeing students feel the “pressure” to accept alternate resolution agreements has been particularly challenging.
“Another deeply frustrating aspect is how students are pressured — intentionally or not — into accepting [alternate] resolution agreements. The process takes an extremely long time, and this year it has taken even longer. The Office appears understaffed and often cannot assemble enough people to form a hearing panel, but students should not suffer for that,” Newcom wrote.
As an RCC, Newcom wrote that it was “painful” to advise students to ultimately accept the alternate resolution since it would often be the most rational choice.
The Sun reached out to OSCCS about the impression that they seemed “understaffed” and whether this impacted their ability to form a hearing panel in a timely manner. The Office did not respond by the time of publication.
In the Oct. 8 Faculty Senate meeting, Lombardi spoke about students' experiences of being in the interim between being temporarily suspended and resolving their case.
“That period of time in between a temporary suspension being issued and a resolution is impactful, unquestionably,” Lombardi said. “The degree to which depends obviously if it’s the full academic [temporary suspension] 一 those are the most serious because their academic ability to continue to go to class and make academic progress 一 that is quite serious. Nonacademic [temporary suspensions] I don't want to underplay that 一 but at least they’re able to maintain academic continuity and continue to go to class.”
When asking a University spokesperson about whether OSCCS intended to create what Newcom described as “pressure” to accept the alternate resolution, they declined to comment specifically about this claim and referred The Sun to the same video guide about the Code and Lombardi’s previous comments made in Faculty Senate and Student Assembly meetings.
Recommended Reform to the Implementation
In August, Lombardi announced that a “formal review process” of the Code and Procedures led by the Codes and Procedures Revision Committee was underway.
On Nov. 19, Dean of Students Marla Love and chair of the committee sent an update on the review process in an all-school email. Love’s email update encouraged students to view a video guide explaining the existing Code and Procedures and announced dates for listening sessions.
Newcom said that the committee has also reached out to the Office of RCCs for their feedback on the Code.
“Our input is invaluable,” Newcom wrote in an email sent to The Sun . “We are the ones who see how the Code is applied in practice every single day.”
Newcom identified three aspects of the Code that she thought were problematic and should be revised:
- Requiring students to cooperate with Cornell’s investigative process that could potentially lead to self-incrimination
- Lack of a mental health defense
- Lack of due process in cases in which students are temporarily suspended
Newcom stated that while temporary suspensions are “framed as interim safety measures, their consequences are so severe that they amount to a de facto punishment which are imposed before any finding of responsibility.”
Newcom cited examples of how the imposition of a temporary suspension in this way has resulted in serious disruptions in students’ lives, such as how, for international students, a temporary suspension can mean losing their visa status and setbacks to educational goals.
“Even for domestic students, the suspension creates gaps in transcripts, delayed graduations, months and months of waiting around for a hearing with no academic progress and stigmatizing records that carry forward into job and graduate school applications,” Newcom wrote.
To avoid these potential harms, Newcom proposed that the Code require “an oral hearing before an impartial decision-maker to test the necessity of a temporary.” While Newcom stated that currently, the only appeal process available to students is a written appeal to one administrator, this is only true for non-academic temporary suspensions, according to the Procedures. For full, academic temporary suspensions 一 in which a student is prohibited from attending class and halts their academic progress 一 the student can pursue an additional level of appeal to Provost Kavita Bala.
“A single written appeal to one administrator does not provide sufficient due process where the stakes are this high. Students deserve the opportunity to contest whether a suspension is truly necessary to protect the community, or whether lesser restrictions could suffice, before being removed from their education and stripped of their standing at the University,” Newcom wrote.
Lewis also produced a memo detailing the shortcomings and potential revisions to the Code. Lewis submitted his memo to a group of faculty senators who were working on a resolution about the use of temporary suspensions and reached out to former RCCs and requested their insights on the student conduct process. This resolution was passed on Nov. 21.
Lewis proposed four main recommendations to address what he identified as the Codes’ shortcomings. To address the use of temporary suspensions in cases that do not meet its stated threshold, Lewis suggested that the Code should make the current written temporary suspension factors mandatory to consider and to strike the phrase “among others” from the temporary suspension factors.
“This catchall phrase allows OSCCS to make arbitrary temporary suspensions not tied to the seven specific factors in the Procedures,” Lewis wrote. “OSCCS and the administration may argue that they need this latitude to temporarily suspend students in emergency situations. However, almost all emergency situations would fall under the current written factors. And in a true emergency, CUPD and other law enforcement have the power to arrest and detain students without regard to the student conduct process.”
The other aspects of the Code that Lewis addressed in his memo as being problematic included:
- Lombardi’s role as someone who receives appeals for temporary suspensions but who also directs the OSCCS
- Adding a mechanism to uphold the Code’s stated support of free speech
- Making it clear that the University president does not have a role in the student conduct process
Temporary Suspensions in 2025
Newcom said that the Office of the RCCs has not seen individual temporary suspensions so far within the 2025-2026 academic year and is uncertain about whether this is due to OSCCS reforming its practices or if there have simply been fewer protests.
This academic year has seen a general decrease in protest activity compared to the 2024-2025 academic year. There have been some smaller-scale protests, such as the small group of pro-Palestinian protestors who gathered outside Willard Straight Hall to call on University trustees to divest from arms manufacturers involved in the war in Gaza during Trustee-Council Annual Meeting week.
Newcom stated that students who agree to the alternative resolution agreements face heightened disciplinary action if they re-engage in protest activity that OSCCS views to be in violation with the Code.
“Students essentially signed away their ability to protest without risking very serious consequences. And even if they still want to protest, they must be absolutely certain they remain compliant with the Code; from my perspective, many of them are unsure how to do that under the Office’s current interpretation.” Newcom wrote.
Clarification: December 12, 11:27 a.m.: This article has been updated to include the correct name for alternative resolutions and that while Lombardi explained at an Oct. 9 Student Assembly meeting that the University Hearing and Review Panel is independent from the administration, the Hearing Panel Chair is an OSCCS employee and works closely with the rest of the panel.
