A resolution criticizing delays in temporary suspension cases for student protesters was stalled by the passage of a rare subsidiary motion in Wednesday’s Faculty Senate meeting.
President Michael Kotlikoff, Provost Kavita Bala and Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi also fielded questions from faculty on a professor’s discrimination case, released body camera footage from the Pathways to Peace demonstration and the Code of Conduct review process.
A Delayed Resolution
Faculty senators introduced the resolution “Concerning Excessive and Unreasonable Delay in the Conduct of Disciplinary Hearings and Providing for Reform of Procedures under the Student Code of Conduct.”
The resolution condemns the administration for its “unfair” execution of temporary suspensions. The resolution cites the eight-month gap between the start of graduate student Sriram Parasurama’s temporary suspension for the September 2024 Statler Hall career fair shutdown and his disciplinary hearing in June.
The resolution calls for the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards — which manages Student Code of Conduct enforcement — to be “independent of the central administration.” The resolution also urges revisions to the Student Code of Conduct, proposing a committee to review it comprised of three “freely-elected members” from each shared governance body.
The resolution comes amid controversy concerning a perceived lack of representation from several shared governance bodies on a recently-created Code of Conduct review committee, where members were appointed by the Cornell administration rather than elected by constituents.
Prof. Tracy McNulty, romance studies, said that the resolution’s sponsors proposed it two months ago, but did not hear whether they would be able to present it until “a couple of days” before the meeting.
In response to the resolution, the University Faculty Committee, a liaison between the Faculty Senate and senior administrators, presented a subsidiary motion. The motion recommended revisions that will delay voting on the resolution until November, such as the acknowledgement of the ongoing Code of Conduct revision process and the incorporation of relevant data from the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.
Prof. Tara Holm, mathematics, who is a UFC member, said in her speech that the current resolution is “dangerous for sound policy making,” criticizing the resolution as a violation of Parasurama’s privacy that “elevates a single case and misrepresents it as typical.”
Prof. Risa Lieberwitz, industrial and labor relations, described the motion as unusual and labelled it a “deflection” from the original resolution.
“I’ve never seen a subsidiary motion,” Lieberwitz said. “I’ve seen a motion to amend, but this is basically substituting this new motion for the original resolution.”
The subsidiary motion was put to a vote to the faculty and passed 36 to 30, with nine current senators abstaining.
“There is no dialogue,” Prof. Richard Bensel, government, said. Bensel is the main sponsor of the original resolution. “The subsidiary motion was never presented to us in any form before it entered the Senate agenda.”
He views the motion as an attempt to subdue, rather than improve, the proposed resolution.
“The subsidiary motion is an attempt to gut our resolution,” Bensel said. “Referring it to a committee, it’ll never come out.”
McNulty also raised concerns about the decision to invite Kotlikoff, Lombardi and Bala to speak at the meeting, which left only thirty minutes for the resolution after faculty questions.
“They’re trying to fill up that time, and of course, that goes at the front of the time to prevent there from being a resolution,” she said.
The sponsors must now revise the resolution to address the concerns outlined in the motion by Oct. 13, after which the Committee on Academic Programs and Policies will provide feedback in preparation for consideration at the November Faculty Senate meeting.
Upper Admin Address Faculty
Following an address from Kotlikoff concerning the University's federal relations, Bala and Kotlikoff fielded a series of questions from faculty. Lombardi presented data on the use of temporary suspensions in 2025.
Kotlikoff explained that the University never received a letter outlining the rationale for federal funding cuts, complicating the legality of the situation. He compared Cornell’s position to Harvard, who did receive a letter explaining why funding was pulled, which gave them grounds to advance a successful First Amendment case.
In contrast, Cornell’s stop-work orders simply read “upon direction from The White House,” according to Kotlikoff, with no further information provided. Kotlikoff explained that this prevents Cornell from forming a strong legal argument.
Kotlikoff also noted that on top of stop-work orders, the federal government has failed to make payments on several grants. This puts the University in a tight position, according to Kotlikoff, as it is “contractually obligated to continue to do the work.”
Faculty asked about body camera footage from a demonstration at the Pathways to Peace panel in March, where 17 protesters were arrested or detained.
The footage, released in September, shows Kristin Hopkins, chief administrator for the office of the president and provost, expressing dissatisfaction over the number of protestors detained on behalf of an individual referred to as “Mike.” She stated that he “was just hoping the number would be more than eight.”
Kotlikoff acknowledged that he was the one being referred to, but said that Hopkins was “misrepresenting or misunderstanding” his intentions.
“What I was saying is the efforts by the Cornell University Police should be to ID everyone who disrupted that event, full stop. That's all,” he said. “The idea that a president of Cornell would want to arrest students that didn't do anything wrong or violate our processes, I think is just silly.”
Faculty members also asked about disciplinary action towards Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, literatures in English, who potentially faced a possible two-semester suspension for reportedly asking an Israeli student, whom Cheyfitz claimed was disruptive, to leave his Spring 2025 course on Gaza.
A six-person panel on the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Status of the Faculty found insufficient evidence to claim Cheyfitz was discriminating against the student, recommending no sanctions.
However, Bala wrote in an August letter to Cheyfitz that the recommendations would be “set aside,” according to a letter to Kotlikoff and other administrators from Anita Levy, senior program officer of the national American Association of University Professors.
The Cornell Chapter of the American Association of University Professors claims Bala disregarded the University’s Policy 6.4 procedures for an employee respondent that “The dean or equivalent unit head must accept the Committee's findings of fact and conclusions.”
The policy also says that “he or she may modify the Committee's recommended sanctions.”
At the Faculty Senate meeting, Bala said that the AFPSF panel was “an independent committee” whose ruling was “based on a different threshold by their own internal rules,” which she described as not aligned to the mandated federal standard of “preponderance of evidence” used by the Cornell Office of Civil Rights.
“As a university, we would be violating federal anti-discrimination law if we accepted their findings based on that threshold,” she said.
Lombardi presented previously unreleased data on temporary suspensions from the 2025 academic year. According to his presentation, 22 students received full or non-academic temporary suspensions, all of whom had their restrictions of University privileges modified, except for one student who is on a leave of absence.
He also said that the time it takes for formal complaints to be resolved through an investigation can vary, with one having taken up to eighteen months. Temporary suspensions can be imposed only if a formal complaint has been filed, and may include the withdrawal of all University privileges and services, including class attendance.
Lombardi also said that he is “open” to making the Code and Procedures Review Committee membership “inclusive.” He noted that the committee has added MBA candidate Guy-Lee King, at the request of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly president. King is not a current member in the GPSA, but he is a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow in the SC Johnson College of Business.
Correction, Oct. 10, 3:13 p.m.: This article has been corrected to accurately reflect a statement from Provost Bala about the AFPSF panel during the meeting.
Yuhan Huang is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. Yuhan is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at yhuang@cornellsun.com.
Kate Turk is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is an assistant news editor for the 143rd Editorial Board. She can be reached at kturk@cornellsun.com.
