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Cornell graduate student union rallies against suspension of protester

Around 100 union members and their supporters rallied on Cornell's campus Friday.
Aurora Berry
/
WSKG News
Around 100 union members and their supporters rallied on Cornell's campus Friday.

Around 100 members and supporters of Cornell Graduate Students United, the union that represents graduate workers at Cornell University, rallied on Friday against the suspension of one of its members .

Graduate student Sriram Parasurama was temporarily suspended from Cornell and banned from campus for three years after participating in a pro-Palestinian protest that shut down a career fair featuring weapons manufacturers in September.

Parasurma was also arrested by Cornell police and charged with obstructing governmental administration and unlawful assembly, although the Cornell Sun reported the city of Ithaca’s Assistant District Attorney Amelia Carol Christian proposed that he and other arrested students should instead accept a less severe disorderly conduct charge.

Participants in the protest pushed through a line of police to enter a career fair that featured weapons manufacturers L-3 Harris and Boeing.

Boeing was the top U.S manufacturer of missiles and other military weapons sent to Israel between 2021 and 2023, according to reporting from Seattle’s KUOW. 

Once inside, protesters banged pots and pans and chanted. The protest ultimately led the university to close the career fair early.

Cornell Graduate Students United said the university justified Parasurama's multi-year ban from by saying that he presents a danger to health and safety.

However, union members who spoke at Friday’s rally said Parasurama is not a danger. Instead, they described him as a beloved member of Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Sciences who is being unfairly punished by his employer for speaking out against the war in Gaza.

Union member Olga Khmelnitsky was one of the leaders of Friday’s protest. She said even though Parasurama’s suspension is temporary, the consequences for his life and career are permanent.

“In light of this temporary, temporary and interim discipline, he's lost his funding, his health care, he's going to lose his pay,” she said.

Parasurama is also a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. The disciplinary action has put his fellowship at risk, according to a video statement posted on the union’s social media.

Khmelnitsky said the union is continuing to bargain on Parasurama’s behalf against the disciplinary action.

Graduate workers Olga Khmelnitsky and Katie Rohrbaugh speaking at Friday's rally.
Aurora Berry
/
WSKG News
Graduate workers Olga Khmelnitsky and Katie Rohrbaugh speaking at Friday's rally.

The union is also working towards its first contract with the university, which Cornell Graduate Students United members said they hope will include “Just Cause” standards, which could give the union more leverage when negotiating discipline.

Just cause is meant to protect employees from unfair firings. It means an employer has to provide a good reason for disciplinary action and would require due process for disciplinary cases like Parasurama’s.

Union member and graduate student Katie Rohrbaugh also led Friday’s protest. She said Parasurama’s suspension is part of a trend of unfair discipline directed at people protesting the war in Gaza.

“We've been seeing disproportionate punishment and a lot of these clandestine disciplinary measures specifically in response to the pro-Palestine movement,” she said.

The suspension of another pro-Palestinian activist and union member, international graduate student Momodou Taal, garnered national attention for the impact that disenrollment would have had on his immigration status. Six participants in a protest encampment were also suspended last spring, and over 20 people were arrested during a sit-in protest.

Cornell declined to comment on the graduate student rally or disciplinary action against Parasurama. Interim university president Michael Kotlikoff said the career fair protest created an “environment of intimidation and fear” in a September statement.