The Best Protection For Students Is a Mass Movement

Nidaa Lafi: I’m here today with Momodou Taal to have a conversation about the recent attacks on the student movement and as well as to learn more about Momodou’s lawsuit that you recently filed against President Trump for his discriminatory executive orders. Momodou is an international PhD student in Cornell University’s Africana Studies Department. He’s also an organizer and the host of the podcast The Malcolm Effect.

Momodou, a lot of us have been following your work and keeping up with the various attacks that you’ve been under – particularly starting around September 2024 when your own institution, Cornell University, attempted to suspend you with the intention of expelling you and revoking your student visa status. But you took up that fight, and ultimately you were able to reverse that decision. How did all of that play out?

Momodou Taal: It’s interesting that you began the story in September, but I had been suspended in April, for the encampment stuff I was in. I was a negotiator. And what we found at the time is all these Ivy League schools continually talk to each other. I think it’s very important to know that they meet, they talk, they discuss tactics on how to repress students, right? And a consistent theme throughout several schools was we must suspend negotiators, or we must suspend people who we think are leaders of movements. It’s quite silly, because we know the way we structured our movements, they’re not dependent on one person. If the Palestinian resistance has taught us one thing is that the movement is not dependent upon a single individual. They can suspend so many people, and the movement still goes on. You know, I think Columbia got a rude awakening, that when they expelled this many students, a building occupation took place.

But for my personal story, I was suspended in April, was reinstated, and then we were involved in an action at a career fair. This fair had L3Harris doing a recruitment drive, as well as Boeing.

What is so frustrating about this is every single time these schools go, why don’t you just go through the proper channels? We tried that. We had a referendum in which 70% of the students voted for divestment, and we did it in such a way that the president has this many days to reply. It was the most democratic participation we’ve had since the since the anti-apartheid struggle. We did that. And the president effectively says, ​“I hear these people, and no, we’re not going to divest.”

Then they go and invite the actual companies that are directly involved in the genocide, right? So the career fair was brought to an end, but for my own involvement, I was in there for five minutes. There was a brief confrontation with the police. From my perspective, the police looked like they just moved out of the way and relented their positions. But upon leaving the career fair, I’d been noticed by the chief of police. My face is no stranger to him, and he had recognized me or reported me. I was pulled in the following Monday, which was September 21. I was essentially told that we’re going to de-enroll you and you must leave in 48 hours.

Ever since that time, we have seen that Cornell and other schools have not just been complicit with genocide, have not just collaborated with the various administrations, but they also intentionally put targets on the backs of students. And that’s what happened to me. So with this lawsuit, with Trump filing or signing those executive orders which are clearly targeting international students and people who have precarious positions, we kind of thought, it’s only a matter of time until they target someone like me and target others like me.

We’re seeking a national injunction in the hope that it says these executive orders are illegal, first and foremost, and they should be stopped. These things are being done to stop the movement. This is why we thought we had to take the position that we have to do something. Some other people are talking about being brave and courageous, and I thank you for all those things, but I just don’t see it like that. I don’t see how anyone can witness what we’ve seen for the last 17 months, and then see the resumption of hostilities, to then not do anything. We have to do something.

NL: I’m curious to hear a little bit more about the specific executive orders that you’re targeting in the lawsuit. We’re hearing about new executive orders left and right, so which are the ones that are impacting us and how are you seeking to challenge that?

MT: On the campaign trail, Trump said, if you were seen at these ​“pro-Hamas” protests, we will find you and we will deport you. So Trump is making good on his promise, and in this specific language, it’s vague, it’s overarching, it’s broad, it’s an overreach. But if you were to boil it down, we would say there are specific parts of the executive orders that are important. One makes it incumbent upon the university to essentially collaborate and report to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation. That’s one aspect of it. Another one is just giving the president the power and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to declare people to be hostile to the government. The language is so broad. If you critique American culture, what does that mean? Am I going to be deported for criticizing American culture? This is why it should be worrying, because what we’re essentially saying in this country now is we cannot critique another government anymore, let alone the American government. What’s so fascinating to me in this moment is we probably have more of a right to critique the American government than we do Israel.

We understand that those who bear the brunt of the struggle the most are those in Gaza, in the West Bank and on the ground in the region in West Asia. But we do know that there’s a struggle that we can wage, given that our governments are complicit and that they want no critique of Israel. But I keep saying this is not a sign of strength. Gramsci talks about how power is the most effective when it’s invisible, but when power becomes visible, it means that there’s almost an increasing disavowal of the ideology. And we’ve seen that Zionism will never go back to what it was, right? People know what Zionism is now. There’s no way you can justify killing 500 people in an hour, upwards of 18,000 children. We’ve never seen a livestreamed genocide. So I think that project is over. And given that it’s over, the only way to do it is to repress us with violence and the state apparatus.

NL: I’m going to read the statement that you put out earlier today, because I want everybody to hear it: ​“By my suing, I hope that this will offer some reprieve for all, but most immediately, international students who have their hearts alive. This lawsuit is aimed at reversing the chill on speech and making people feel confident to stand up. I’m fighting for our First Amendment rights and ability to protest genocide and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. When we are attacked for speech, we have to exercise it even more. Now is not the time to retreat, but to double down. I am undeterred in my commitment to seeing this through the images in Gaza are horrifying and only strengthen my resolve to do whatever we can. Free Palestine.” You’ve already brushed on this, but I want to hear more on the nature of these attacks and how they’re all coming with this same intention to quell the movement on a global scale.

MT: We talk about the imperial boomerang, right? What the imperialists do abroad will one day come back. This is why, speaking to those who are still on the fence or liberal people, you have to realize that this attack that Trump is doing will impact you. We’re seeing cuts, non-stop cuts. We’ve seen all the university presidents who capitulated to the witch hunt of these of universities and campuses, and they still lost their jobs. They weren’t spared, they weren’t saved.

And just to talk about the attacks on this movement, again, this is being done deliberately because of the strength of the movement. I do go through my days where I feel like we haven’t done enough. But the fact that we have the largest empire in history, the most militarized empire in history, fighting against students, repressing students and compelling and forcing universities to clamp down on students, for me, that’s not a sign of strength on their part. It’s a sign that they’re losing their ideological battle. They’re losing it, and this is where we come in. This is where we have to keep making the case. We can’t stop now.

And I know it’s scary, but we all have our different parts to play. I don’t want to blow this lawsuit out of proportion. I’m under no illusions. The lawsuit can go either way. But what I was hoping was that it injects much needed energy into the movement. America likes to claim that, after the Bible, the most sacrosanct and sacred document is the Constitution. So I think this lawsuit is a stress test. I’m putting that to the test. Trump is flagrantly abusing power right now. We see that. But at least we can say on paper that we put this to the test.

And I know it’s scary, but we all have our different parts to play. I don’t want to blow this lawsuit out of proportion. I’m under no illusions. The lawsuit can go either way. But what I was hoping was that it injects much needed energy into the movement. America likes to claim that, after the Bible, the most sacrosanct and sacred document is the Constitution. So I think this lawsuit is a stress test. I’m putting that to the test. Trump is flagrantly abusing power right now. We see that. But at least we can say on paper that we put this to the test.

NL: I wanted to go back to something you mentioned earlier about the role of the universities and administrations. Universities and administrations have been complicit for a long time in repressing their students. So I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the role that administrations are playing in carrying out this repression?

MT: We can call them universities, or we can call them corporations, because it seems like they are more invested in their bottom line, how they manage their money and their investments, right? And I think of the late great Stuart Hall, who said, ​“The university is either a critical institution or it is nothing at all.” And I think we’re seeing that now. Because, again, what is our vocation as academics? If your vocation as an academic is merely to publish articles and go to conferences, then for me you have no use in this world. Because what, 20 people are going to read it? But if you see your vocation as speaking truth to power, then you have to realize the university needs to be a place that facilitates that.

But all too often we’ve seen university after university capitulate, collaborate, sanction their students, repress their students in some of the most vile and vicious ways, all for what? Colombia is hell right now, right? Colombia is a hellhole right now. And again, battle lines are being drawn even further now, because we’re going to remember all the academics that didn’t speak out, all the people who made profits and made a career out of talking about decolonization but didn’t speak up. So we’ve seen the battle lines. But fundamentally, the role of the university, it should be a place that produces thinkers and people who are prepared to take on the world with analysis. But it doesn’t do that. What it does do is it sides with big business. It sides with big money at the expense of their students and their students’ safety and their students’ education. We have to have a sober assessment of what the university actually is.

NL: I want to emphasize that this is not just something we’re seeing because Donald Trump is in office right. It’s clear that, on a broader level, it is the goal of the American political establishment from both sides of the aisle to crush the movement for Palestinian Liberation. So in this heightened moment of repression, my question is, how do we consolidate the gains that we’ve made as a movement and continue to advance — despite the clear attempt by the political elites to quell us?

MT: Each moment has been created by historical conditions. Trump is only allowed to do and get away with what he’s doing right now because of what Biden did before. Right? The genocide started under Biden, and Biden continually poured arms into it. The students were being repressed under Biden. Liberals seem to suffer mass psychosis and amnesia. But we don’t. We remember. We remember it was just a few months ago we were being repressed under a Biden government, and Biden didn’t have anything to say. As you correctly pointed out, the American political establishment is bipartisan in repression, is bipartisan in genocide, is bipartisan in oppression and violence.

But in terms of consolidating our gains, we can all be doing more. Palestinians have given everything they can for their liberation struggle. Others in the region are doing the same where they can. We can do more as well, but I’m strongly against spreading defeatism, no matter how I feel. Because I’m like, wow, 17 months of demonstration and escalations and the genocide is still going on. I get those thoughts, but fundamentally, we are engaged in a war of ideas, as Castro put it. I think we have been super effective on that front. I’m seeing more and more people who say, okay, I don’t really know about politics, but I hate Zionism.

So we have to continue on the ideological front and also have a sober material analysis, given that we are in the belly of the beast. But I think, for the love of God, we need to stop infighting. We need to delineate and separate, who’s an enemy, and who’s someone we don’t agree with tactically and strategically. There is a difference there, because with an enemy, we just don’t engage with that person, but someone with whom we disagree strategically, tactically, or we think they’re harming the greater movement, then we can have a critique, right? We don’t have to denounce every single person we disagree with on these issues. Because there’s no one way to make a revolution. There’s no one way to strive and struggle. We’re engaging in a truncated battle. We’re going to make mistakes. There’s going to be advances and retreats. So I think we have to keep that in mind.

If we do sincerely believe, which I do, that Palestine is going to be liberated, and we’re going to play a part in that in some capacity, that should be the goal. Keep moving toward that.

NL: Given the limitations of seeking justice through our justice system, how can we support you on this lawsuit?

MT: The legal battle is as much legal as it is political, right? What does that look like? That looks like if we can have increased coordinated messaging, for example. My case is out there, but there’s so many other cases out there as well. We need to keep talking about all these other cases. We need to keep amplifying and raising up. And anyone who gets taken, there needs to be a mass demonstration immediately after that, right? In terms of keeping up to date, you can follow my lawyer, Eric Lee, on Twitter. You can follow me. And just at a very basic level, check in on international students as well. How are they feeling? What support do they need as well? These are the things that we can be doing that are practical.

NL: How can we come together at this time to engage in mass defense as a movement, and how can we face this oppression and repression in a way that is unified?

MT: We’ve seen what’s happening on the ground in Gaza, right? We’ve had so many martyrs from so many different traditions. Taking our cue from other liberation struggles — Algeria, anti-apartheid, so many others — it was a long battle. But they were victorious. So given that it’s a long battle, we have to engage in tactics that preserve us as much as we can, knowing that we’re escalating at the same time. How do we think of ways to keep people safe in this moment, right? Who’s going to be more front facing? Who’s going to be back facing these things? Be dynamic. Be agile.

And what has somewhat been allowed to us during what the Zionist entity called a cease-fire are moments of reflection. When we’re at university, we know we’re limited, right? People are going to graduate and leave. So I have to think about how to train people who, after we’re not in these places anymore, can carry on the mantle for Palestinian Liberation? It doesn’t mean that when people graduate, the movement dies on campus. Those are the things I’m thinking through again and again. I always take my cue from the Palestinian Youth Movement.

But again, the administration is trying to get us to be scared and keep quiet. The best response would be to double down and be even louder, right? It would be an act of defiance. These will be the best things to do. So I hope the lawsuit does inject some more momentum into the movement.