Cornell, Science, & The Lies They Tell

5 min readOct 24, 2019

Imagine being so comfortable with white supremacy that rather than address racism, discrimination, and abuse of a visiting fellow, Cornell University chooses to attempt to ruin the reputation of the very same person, an AfroIndigenous US citizen that dared to speak against it at the same institution. Because apparently, all I need is more abuse for speaking up, Cornell?

Were my asking for you to actually protect students, fellows, and other staff too much for you? My demands are pretty basic and in support of ALL marginalized people at Cornell.

Welcome to the next chapter of Cornell’s Alliance for White Supremacy — my response to Cornell’s attempt to ruin my reputation, hide the truth, and silence me.

Where should I even start…Let’s start with a timeline:

This is what I endured for 2 months of a program in which no one spoke to me about any fellows having problems with me and where I only spoke during Question & Answer portions of the program.

I didn’t realize I was the only person in the course not allowed to speak during the course about my perspectives, ideas, and areas of interest as everyone else?

Anyway…

Yes, I am a US citizen BUT…cancelling my flight on November 15th and trying to force me to leave two days later without my consent by telling me I had to leave and they would send a car to pick me up and drive me to the airport was violent. I keep asking myself how many people they did that to, especially when they were not US citizens.

Also, I had to REPEATEDLY state that I was a US citizen before and during the program. The only person that was excused from the VISA session was Sienna Miller, the WHITE US citizen, and then me when I raised my hand and reminded them YET again, that I was a US citizen.

Perhaps deportation is not the correct word, but forcing someone to leave a country when they repeatedly said they did not want to is still trying to force someone to try to leave the country. Tammy Thomas & Sarah Evanega CANCELED my flight for November 15th and forcibly booked me a new flight, which I repeatedly declined. It was only when I asked the travel agent to cancel it that it was canceled. SO, in essence, they violated my consent and left me stranded.

There was ZERO attempt to support me during my time at the Alliance for Science at Cornell University. There was racism, harassment, and retaliation for daring to speak up.

And I have barely touched on the shaming and violation of my disability rights when I asked for basic accommodations. Here’s an example of how I was treated for asking Pablo Orozco, program lead of Alliance for Science, to go back on a slide so I could take notes. This after REPEATEDLY letting the people in my program know of my disability needs!

As for refusal to use resources…you can read for yourselves how I attempted to meet with an advocate and was refused and was then harassed to not go to presentations, asked to leave the program because “this is a program about biotechnology and not social justice.”