I Went Looking Into the Cornell 7 and Found a Different Story

Weapons research, suspended protesters, and a media blitz that lines up a little too well

Whatever happened that night in 2024, I have rarely seen such a coordinated media push behind one story. And if you look at the timing, it lines up with a growing battle between Cornell and student groups protesting the wars overseas. The more I dug, the more it looked to me like this story is being used as leverage against those students.

What I Didn't Know About Cornell

 I recently found out how closely Cornell is tied to the weapons industry, and to Israel's military in particular. Its flagship New York City campus, Cornell Tech, was built as a joint project with the Technion, Israel's top engineering school, which critics have long called the "R&D wing of the Israeli military." Cornell has also hosted research sponsored by Israel's Ministry of Defense and by American defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, and weapons manufacturers recruit Cornell students through the university's own Career Services office.

None of this was a secret, exactly. It's just not the Cornell most people picture. And it explains why a student movement against the wars in Gaza and Iran would set its sights on Cornell in the first place.

The Timeline

• August 24: Students Not Bombs launches its campaign on the first day of the fall semester.

• September 15: Students Not Bombs announces Hasan Piker's visit. Tickets sell out within hours.

• September 16: Jane Doe files a civil lawsuit.

• September 24: Piker speaks at Sage Chapel at an anti-war event hosted by student organizations.

• September 28: The DA reopens the case, citing the "community outrage stemming from the incomplete news and social media coverage."

• October 2: Governor Kathy Hochul appoints Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor.

• October 5: Faculty submit a resolution declaring no confidence in the administration's ability to address "the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University." About 40 faculty senators back holding a vote.

• October 7: Students hold a seven-hour sit-in at Toni Morrison Dining Hall, one hour for each hour of the alleged assault.

• October 7: Ithaca's Common Council votes 9-1 to temporarily bar Cornell and all affiliated student groups from new city permits for assemblies, special events, use of the Ithaca Commons and certain noise permits, through November 5.

• October 9: ABC News releases "The Cornell Seven," an episode of IMPACT x Nightline, on Hulu and Disney+.

• October 14: The Faculty Senate takes up the no-confidence resolution.

• October 28: A week-long faculty no-confidence vote begins.

Cornell Has Been Cracking Down on Protesters for Years

This fight didn't start with Piker. Before his talk, Piker said on his livestream that Cornell had punished pro-Palestine protesters more harshly than most of the Chi Phi men, and that one encampment leader he'd spoken with got suspended for a full year. I couldn't verify that specific case, since he didn't name the student. But when I went looking, I found a long list of students Cornell has suspended, banned or pushed out over pro-Palestinian protests since 2024:

• April 2024 (encampment): Four students were temporarily suspended the day after an encampment went up on the Arts Quad, all of them part of the protesters' negotiating team. Two more were suspended shortly after, bringing the total to six. All six risked losing their entire semester's credit, tuition and fees, just days before finishing their courses. One was offered incomplete grades if he signed an agreement promising not to support the encampment. He refused.

• September 2024 (career fair protest): Doctoral student Momodou Taal was suspended a second time after a protest that shut down a career fair where Boeing and L3Harris were recruiting. As an international student, the suspension threatened his visa. Cornell reversed it in October 2024 but banned him from campus.

• October 2024 (career fair protest): Four more students were temporarily suspended and banned from campus for three years. One of them was the president of Cornell's Jewish Voice for Peace chapter.

• March 2025: Cornell suspended its entire Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after activists interrupted a panel featuring Israeli and U.S. officials.

• May 2025: Another international doctoral student, who reportedly protested at the career fair for about five minutes, lost his student status.

All told, Cornell has suspended around 20 students over its encampment and career fair protests alone, and Cornell's Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter says at least five have been banned from campus for several years.

What I Think Is Happening

I think the media is being weaponized against Cornell's student body. Turning a two-year-old case into a national scandal puts serious financial and reputational pressure on the university, and that kind of pressure pushes an administration to shut down protests against weapons manufacturers rather than answer them. I also think it's a way to punish the campus for letting Hasan Piker, one of the most popular streamers in the country, fill Sage Chapel. Maybe I'm wrong. But Cornell has spent two years showing students what protest will cost them, and now, at least until November 5, the city won't even grant Cornell student groups new permits to assemble.