Cornell Threatens Funding for Two Pro-Palestine Graduate Students Amid ICE Investigation

Cornell University has told graduate students Momodou Taal and Amandla Thomas-Johnson that they must return to Ithaca and serve as teaching assistants this fall or forfeit their university stipends. The funding, which the students say is their only source of income, was previously promised to continue while they completed their dissertations abroad after the Trump administration began immigration inquiries into them in March 2025.

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Both students participated in a September 2024 protest that shut down a Cornell job fair featuring weapons manufacturers Boeing and L3Harris, which supply Israel. Following the protest, they were suspended and faced possible expulsion—an action that could trigger deportation under U.S. immigration law. After President Trump took office in early 2025, the administration issued an executive order targeting international student activists involved in pro-Palestine demonstrations. Taal, a British-Gambian dual citizen, and Thomas-Johnson, a British citizen, left the United States in March 2025 to avoid ICE detention, traveling through Canada, Switzerland, Senegal, Ghana and ultimately Cairo.

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• Annual stipend: $67,000 guaranteed for the first five years of Taal’s Africana Studies Ph.D. program (2022 acceptance letter).

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• Program year: Taal is in his fifth year; Thomas-Johnson is in his sixth year of a Literatures in English Ph.D. program.

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• Funding options outlined in a June 10 letter: (1) Return to campus for a teaching assistantship; (2) Apply for external fellowships while remaining abroad; (3) Forfeit funding and self-pay tuition; or Take a leave of absence.

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The spokesperson also asserted that the university’s graduate-funding policy is “longstanding” and unrelated to the November 2025 agreement with the federal government.

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The graduate student union, represented by president Ewa Nizalowska, filed grievances claiming the new funding requirement breaches the collective-bargaining agreement.

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• “Either they knew I can’t come back, which is probably most likely, or they actually want me to come back and get arrested on arrival,” — Momodou Taal, civil rights attorney

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• “If I don’t get funding, I’m going to be homeless,” — Momodou Taal, civil rights attorney

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• “Cornell knows full well that Momodou would be immediately detained and sent to one of the places where more people are dying than ever before, facing all sorts of abuse, simply for his speech,” — Eric Lee, a civil rights attorney representing Taal

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• “They’re trying to continue making an example out of me and Momodou for our political choices,” — Amandla Thomas-Johnson

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Cornell’s graduate school administration is scheduled to send a formal letter to Taal on June 10 outlining his funding options for the upcoming academic year. The outcome of the graduate student union’s grievances and any further UN correspondence remain pending.

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