Thousands of students across the U.S. have participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, urging their schools to divest from companies selling weapons to Israel amid its ongoing war in Gaza.
But while most are American citizens, Momodou Taal, a 30-year-old PhD student at Cornell University and a British national, is facing the possibility of being forced to leave the country because of it.
A third-year PhD candidate in Africana studies who also teaches a first-year writing seminar called “What is Blackness? Race and Processes of Racialization,” Taal is at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, under the F-1 student visa program.
He was among four Cornell students suspended in the spring for participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus. The university informed Taal of a second “temporary suspension” on Monday in connection with a protest on September 18.
University officials have told Taal that the latest suspension would lead to his…
