AOC Headlines Progressive “Students v. Billionaires” Town Hall
On September 27, Cornell student leaders took the stage at the AOC-headlined “Students v. Billionaires” town hall. “Long live the student resistance. Long live the student intifada,” Zoe Reisman ‘29 chanted, before leading the audience to a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Mina Petrova, ‘29, president of Cornell YDSA, and Reisman, co-chair for Cornell YDSA and secretary of Students for Justice in Palestine, both made pre-show appearances at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) student-focused town hall titled “Students vs. Billionaires.”
Nearly 1,000 people packed into the largest room available at the Downtown Ithaca Business Center, in which Representative Ocasio-Cortez would condemn the “culture of rape” across elite institutions and threats from AI. The event was hosted by More Perfect University, an organization effectively a left-leaning alternative to Turning Point USA, and three Cornell student organizations: Students for a Democratic Cornell, Cornell Young Democratic Socialists of America, and Cornell Graduate Students Union.
In addition to leading the aforementioned chants, Petrova and Reisman described Cornell as “run by CEO trustees who are profiting off genocide and war.” They further detailed their efforts to challenge the university’s policies and ties, saying “Thus far, Students not Bombs has…protested weapons manufacturers recruiting at Cornell Career Fair, we brought Hasan Piker to campus…We do not plan on stopping.” Hasan Piker is a prominent socialist political streamer who had visited Cornell just a few days before AOC’s appearance in Ithaca.
Other Cornell students, such as Spencer Krenk ‘29, a member of Students for a Democratic Cornell, criticized Cornell’s administration for “completely crush[ing] free speech and eliminat[ing] due process,” seeing that “over 45 students [had been]arrested for simply peacefully protesting.” He also criticized the University administration for suspending students based on “false accusations” and “inaccurate evidence.” For Krenk, student movements have “always been on the right side of history.”
After the students spoke, AOC touched on topics such as ballooning college tuition, ICE, and local politics. Her stop was a part of an upstate New York tour to “boost turnout” for the midterm elections in November, when Representative Josh Riley (D), the congressman representing Ithaca and the surrounding area, is attempting to recapture the seat he won in 2024.
During the event, Phoebe Brown, a local organizer from Ithaca, pressed AOC on her opinions on midterm hopeful Josh Riley. Brown stated her concerns about upstate New York prisons and asked AOC how she was “supposed to not acknowledge” that Josh Riley “supported the prison guards” and “walked with them on the picket line.”
In response, AOC described Riley as a “listener and torn about issues” like the one Ms. Brown described. She stated that “we do have to work with the reality” that the majority of the Congressional district had voted for Trump and to use disagreement with Riley as a “space for engagement rather than disengagement.”
The Review interviewed event attendees before and after the town hall. Before the event, a Cornell graduate student stated that she attended the event to engage with the progressive community. While skeptical on AOC’s ability to win in this “political climate,” she hoped to see someone like AOC in office. She also voiced concerns on local politics. While she initially supported Josh Riley, she felt like she no longer could.
Maggie, another graduate student at Cornell, has been a longtime follower of AOC. While she felt like AOC’s response to criticism of Josh Riley was vague, she thought it was reasonable given the political circumstances.
A senior at Ithaca College called her response to Brown’s question a “real politician’s answer.”
