It has been seven months since 17 protesters were arrested for peacefully walking out of a panel elevating Israeli and American war criminals.
From the moment the event was announced, we, Cornell’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, recognized this as yet another instance of Cornell using its institutional platform to support genocide, whether rejecting student referenda calling for divestment from weapons manufacturers or suspending pro-Palestine faculty. We condemned the event and we called for a walkout.
On March 10, panelists like mass murderer and international fugitive Tzipi Livni and moderator US ambassador Ryan Crocker, who oversaw human rights abuses across the Middle East, descended on our campus. As attendees heard their disgusting and patronizing rhetoric — for example, Crocker encouraged them to imagine themselves enjoying a “nightcap” in decimated Gaza City — they began to raise their voices in protest and walk out of Bailey Hall.
It was just the excuse President Michael Kotlikoff had been waiting for to threaten SJP with suspension.
Within days, we were banned indefinitely from campus through an anti-democratic “temporary suspension,” the very same process that the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards has consistently weaponized over the past two years to target pro-Palestine students, faculty and organizations. The Formal Complaint lodged against us on March 14 by Cornell University Police Department Lieutenant Scott Grantz, on behalf of Cornell University, accused SJP of violating three sections of the Code of Conduct: Collusion or Complicity, Disorderly Conduct, and Disruption of University Activities. OSCCS Director Christina Liang’s suspension letter claimed that “immediate action is necessary to protect the university community.”
In response, SJP submitted a comprehensive appeal to Assistant Vice President Pat Wynn. We contested OSCCS’s lack of direct evidence, noting that OSCCS ignored its own list of considerations and the recommendations of the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity regarding temporary suspensions.
Cornell’s administration denied our appeal in April. It’s not just us, though: Vice President of Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi and his proxies have never granted a single suspension appeal.
In the months since we were suspended, Israel has continued to escalate in its genocide against the Palestinian people, including by using food as a weapon of war through blockades, the mass shooting of Gazans in line for aid and the routine violation of ceasefire agreements. Local Ithacans and Cornell alumni attempting to break the siege, traveling to the shores of Gaza with aid, have been locked up in Israeli prisons.
Cornell has continued down its anti-democratic and pro-genocide path, cancelling Kehlani’s Slope Day performance because of her pro-Palestine views, unilaterally re-writing the Student Code of Conduct and engaging in ongoing extortion negotiations with the Trump administration. For that entire time, the largest pro-Palestine student organization on campus was barred from operation, its voice suppressed.
Despite Cornell’s unabated attacks on our movement, Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell isn’t dead. Last month, we signed an Alternate Resolution — a list of negotiated terms that SJP must temporarily abide by — and in exchange, SJP has been re-instituted as a registered student organization.
The initial AR presented to us by OSCSS required us to “maintain an attendance list” for every event we hosted, and forced us to provide these lists at any time to the administration upon request. This was a non-starter; Cornell campus activists have been targeted in the past by police harassment, unjustified academic suspensions and even deportations in collaboration with Immigrations and Custom Enforcement. Through negotiation, we were able to include language that offers our members some protections, as our final AR offer only requires us to submit attendance lists “when a report or complaint alleging misconduct by SJP” is made to OSCCS. The deal we signed is far from perfect—the draconian rules that SJP must adhere to include a semester-long ban on co-sponsoring events with other organizations and a requirement for the 2025-2026 school year that our monthly events calendar be approved by OSCCS. But our goal was to bring back SJP as quickly as possible with a deal as fair as we could get, and we believe that we’ve achieved that goal.
Since SJP’s suspension in March, dozens of pro-Palestine events have occurred on campus. We, the student body, have educated ourselves, learning from academics Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi and Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, poet Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian film No Other Land, further research on Cornell’s ties to Israel and each other at study-ins. We have protested against weapons manufacturers, our administration and our Board of Trustees. We have supported those who faced repression for standing with Palestine, packing the court multiple times and organizing to pass Resolution 10 to fight for a student-led Student Code of Conduct. We have honored our martyrs, through funeral processions, vigils, and art. Importantly, we continue to fight for the living in Gaza, encouraging our community to send money to Palestine through fundraiser events.
Kotlikoff may have thought that suspending SJP would strike at the heart of activism on this campus, but he couldn’t have been more wrong — there have never been more students for justice in Palestine at Cornell University.
We’re excited to be back on campus, fighting as we have for over a decade for a free Palestine alongside our peers and comrades. Together, we will win. Stay tuned for news about SJP at Cornell.
Until return.
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Editor's Note: This article has been republished to include hyperlinks for citations.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a registered undergraduate student organization of Cornell University and is a Student Organization Columnist for The Opinion Department. The organization can be reached at sjpcornell@gmail.com.
