Cornell University has initiated disciplinary proceedings against over a dozen anti-Zionist students, staff, and non-Cornell-affiliated individuals who disrupted a “Pathways to Peace” campus event that was held to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians on March 10.

According to a statement by interim president Michael Kotlikoff, 17 protesters organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) heckled and jeered a panel comprising “Middle East leaders and US ambassadors,” violating the “educational process” and the university’s community standards. No sooner had they started than they “were swiftly removed,” Kotlikoff said.

Cornell University Police identified 17 people responsible for what Kotlikoff called an “unacceptable disruption.”

Nine students will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards for “appropriate action,” he added,  which includes the possibility of suspension. Staff members involved in the disruption would be referred “for disciplinary actions through Human Resources,” while outside disrupters were to be issued “issued persona non grata status, barring them from Cornell’s campus.”

As an additional measure, Kotlikoff has also imposed an interim suspension on SJP for its orchestrating the unauthorized protest. The move could, on paper, deactivate the group for the remainder of the semester.

“Events like Pathways to Peace represent our ambition to embrace diverse viewpoints and engage in difficult conversations,” he said. “Cornell must be a place where all voices can be heard and none are silenced.”

Cornell University and Students for Justice in Palestine have sparred all academic year, with SJP pushing the limits of what constitutes appropriate conduct. In Sept., school officials suspended over a dozen students who disrupted a career fair, an action which saw them “physically” breach the area by “[pushing] police out of the way.” In Feb., the university amnestied some of the protesters, granting them “alternate resolutions” which terminated their suspensions, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

In January, anti-Zionist agitators at Cornell kicked off the spring semester with an act of vandalism which defamed Israel as an “occupier” and practitioner of “apartheid.” The students drew a blistering response from Kotlikoff, who said that “acts of violence, extended occupations of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” but the university has declined to say how it will deal with the matter since identifying at least one of the culprits in Feb.

Anti-Zionists convulsed Cornell University’s campus during the 2023-2024 academic year, engaging in activities that are without precedent in the school’s 159-year history. Three weeks after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to perpetrate heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape. Cornell students also occupied an administrative building and held a “mock trial” in which they convicted school president Martha Pollack of complicity in “apartheid” and “genocide against Palestinian civilians.” Meanwhile, history professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s barbarity on Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally held on campus.

By the end of the year, Pollack announced her resignation as president of the university, a decision which followed the installment of an illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the campus in which pro-Hamas students had lived and protested the university’s investments in companies linked to Israel.

Despite some inconsistencies, the Kotlikoff administration has pursued campus lawbreakers. In Feb., it ordered the arrest of a fourth individual, Sumitra P. Pandit, involved in the Sept. career fair protest, pressing charges for obstruction and unlawful assembly.

“Pandita was identified as one of several people refusing to compl with lawful orders of the police to remain outside…and physically forcing their way past officers who were preventing the group’s entrance to the building,” Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) said on Feb. 7. “The investigation into the incident is continuing. All defendants charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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