Free Republic

A member of the Communist Party USA was elected this month to the Ithaca Common Council in New York on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, defeating an independent candidate in a two-way race for the city’s Ward 5 seat. A November 7 People’s World report shared by the Communist Party USA confirmed that Hannah Shvets, a Cornell University student elected November 4 as an Alderperson, is a member of the organization’s Ithaca club. The report added that she also ran with support from the Democratic Socialists of America and its student affiliate, the Young Democratic Socialists of America,...

A young woman named Hannah Shvets, a Cornell student, was elected to the Ithaca Common Council last week. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Communist Party USA. She has also participated in anti-Israel protests, which is now standard for anyone on the left. The New York Post reports: Upstate NY city one-ups Zohran Mamdani by electing communist student, 20 The leaves aren’t the only reds upstate this fall. After socialist Zohran Mamdani won last week’s New York mayoral race, an upstate city has gone one better by electing a full-blown communist. Hannah Shvets,...

Shvets has taken part in numerous anti-Israel protests since Hamas’ terrorist attack on the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the CPUSA paper, People’s World, which celebrated her victory. Just two days after socialist Zohran Mamdani won the election for mayor of New York City, the city council of upstate Ithaca, New York, elected an actual member of the Communist Party USA to the Ithaca Common Council. Hannah Shvets, 20, a Cornell University sophomore and student organizer, defeated independent candidate and former Democratic primary hopeful G.P. Zurenda after winning the endorsement of the Ithaca branch of the Democratic...

After socialist Zohran Mamdani won last week’s New York mayoral race, an upstate city has gone one better by electing a full-blown communist. Hannah Shvets, 20, a student organizer and member of the Communist Party USA, was elected to the Ithaca Common Council on Thursday in the Democratic stronghold’s Fifth Ward, which covers the western half of Cornell University’s campus in the city. Shvets, a Democrat and Cornell sophomore, defeated independent candidate and former Democratic primary hopeful G.P. Zurenda after winning the endorsement of groups that include Ithaca branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Ithaca Tenants Union....

Cornell’s student newspaper sparked furious backlash after it published a professor’s incendiary artwork depicting a bloodied Star of David and Nazi “SS” symbol scrawled on the back of a Palestinian person. The Cornell Daily Sun later took down the disturbing graphic after it was widely blasted as antisemitic, but the ordeal is raising concerns about a deeper cultural problem on campus. “To me, it reflects the normalization of Holocaust inversion, both on the internet and now on Cornell’s campus,” William Jacobson, a law professor who founded Legal Insurrection, a conservative publication, told The Post. “This [SS lighting bolt] graphic is...

Business students at Cornell University who are not members of “marginalized or underrepresented groups” have been told to skip diversity-focused recruiting events, with a warning that attending could harm their career prospects and the school’s ties to recruiters, according to documents obtained by National Review.The directive was circulated in an email on Friday by the student council of Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, the outlet reported. The council introduced the initiative as “Allyship in Action,” which it defined as “the active and continuous practice of using one’s privilege to support, advocate for, and stand with marginalized or...

Cornell University has invited Jew-bashing entertainer Kehlani to perform on campus May 7 — defending the move as just giving its students what they want. Kehlani has a music video that starts with, “Long live the Intifada” — an inflammatory phrase that critics say promotes violence against Israelis and Jews — shared a map online that eliminates the state of Israel and refused to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. The invite to the multi-Grammy Award-nominated R&B artist comes after the Trump administration froze $1 billion in federal funding to the upstate Ivy League school amid a civil-rights...

The radical Cornell University prof who lauded the Hamas terror attack on Israel as “exhilarating” and “energizing” dodged any punishment and is now back teaching at the upstate Ivy League school. Shamed history Professor Russell Rickford was out for the past year on “voluntary leave” after widespread public outcry when he was recorded at an off-campus anti-Israel rally cheering Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion that slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. ““It was exhilarating, it was energizing ….I was exhilarated,” Rickford said at the time — before apologizing for applauding the mass murder of innocent civilians. ... Rickford is now teaching at least...

The remarkable thing about Russell Rickford is that there is nothing extraordinary about him. The Cornell University prof gained notoriety in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 by declaring that he found the terror attack “exhilarating.” Afterward, Rickford apologized for his “horrible choice of words.” After the controversy over his warm words for Oct. 7, Rickford took a “voluntary leave” and is now back in the classroom. What’s outrageous isn’t that he hasn’t been disciplined by the school, but that he fits in so seamlessly. If Rickford, a history professor, went somewhere else to ply his wares, he’d in all...

There have been recent reports of pet cats injured, or worse, in the Ithaca area, with animal predation one of the possible causes, and pet welfare experts suggest keeping cats indoors will help keep them safe, from foxes or coyotes or birds of prey, among other risks of harm. “It’s extremely difficult to tell” what harmed or killed a particular cat without witnessing an incident, says Dr. Bruce Kornreich, the director of the Cornell Feline Health Center and a cardiologist in the Department of Clinical Sciences at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He’s skeptical of anecdotal reports that cats...

$4.2 million will go to develop supportive housing in Ithaca. Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that Steuben Churchpeople Against Poverty (dba Arbor Housing Development) will use the money to construct 20 permanent supportive housing units. The proposed Stately Apartments will feature laundry facilities, a community room, a garden, and commercial space. “Creating new permanent supportive housing is central to my administration’s work to reduce homelessness across New York State, while simultaneously supporting strong neighborhoods throughout our state,” Governor Hochul said. “When completed, these projects will provide vulnerable New Yorkers with an affordable place to call home and the security and...

ITHACA, N.Y. — A person is in custody in connection with a series of antisemitic online threats made against Cornell University’s Jewish community, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Tuesday. “Earlier today, law enforcement identified a person of interest as part of the investigation and this individual is currently in the custody of the New York State Police for questioning,” Hochul said in Tuesday’s statement, adding public safety was a “top priority” and that she was “committed to combatting hate and bias wherever it rears its ugly head.” The online messages surfaced Sunday and included threats to...

Cornell University was on high alert Sunday night after a series of “horrendous, antisemitic” messages threatening the school’s Jewish community were posted earlier on a public forum, school officials said Sunday night. The school notified law enforcement agencies and campus police were taking precautions after a series of disturbing online posts made threats directed at Jewish students and the Center for Jewish Living, according to the university’s president Martha Pollack. The FBI has been contacted of a potential hate crime at the upstate New York Ivy League school amid the Israel-Hamas war, Pollack said. One of the posts on the...

Cornell University’s bucolic upstate New York campus was defaced with hateful anti-Israel graffiti Wednesday morning as some messages read “F–k Israel” and “Zionism = Racism.” The vandalism at the Ithaca Ivy League school came several days after a professor who called Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel “exhilarating” and “energizing” took a leave of absence. The graffiti began on campus sidewalks sometime before 9 a.m.,

'I apologize for the horrible choice of words,' Cornell University Professor Russell Rickford wroteA Cornell University professor who said he was "exhilarated" and "energized" after the Hamas atrocities in Israel issued an apology on Wednesday for the remarks. "I apologize for the horrible choice of words that I used in a portion of a speech that was intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish, and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression," Cornell University professor Russell Rickford said in a letter published in the Cornell Daily Sun. "I recognize that some of the language I used was reprehensible and did not...

A Cornell University professor was caught on camera telling students Hamas’ terror attack on Israel — which has left more than 1,400 dead — was “exhilarating” and “energizing.” The remarks were made at a pro-Palestine protest by Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history at the top-tier Ithaca, New York, school and posted online Sunday by a student who called them “shameful.” The footage of Rickford’s impassioned speech was also shared with The Post by two other tipsters. They declined to say when and where exactly the rally took place, but both said they were shocked by the brazen remarks....

ITHACA, N.Y. — On Wednesday, August 23 just after 1 p.m., Ithaca Police Officers responded to the parking lot of Aldi’s at 505 Third Street for multiple reports of a woman who was actively attacking cars with a meat cleaver. Initial reports indicated the woman was waving a meat cleaver in the air and acting disorderly in the parking lot where many customers were present. Witnesses say the person was using the meat cleaver in an attempt to break windows, slash tires, and cause damage to multiple vehicles parked in the area. When officers arrived on the scene, they quickly...

Ithaca, New York - Starbucks broke US law when it closed a unionized store in Ithaca, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge ruled on Thursday. Administrative law judge Arthur Amchan ruled that Starbucks closed its College Avenue café, located near the Cornell University campus, "in large part to discourage unionization efforts in Ithaca and elsewhere." The coffee chain announced it was shutting down the College Avenue store just two months after all three of its locations in Ithaca voted to unionize. This year, the company said it would close the other two stores as well. Amchan called for Starbucks...

The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca, set amid a pastoral idyll of rolling fields, a pond, and dandelion-stippled meadows, is just a few minutes’ ride from Ithaca College and Cornell University. Serving more than 220 students from preschool through eighth grade, the school features classrooms bathed in natural light, populated with the offspring of professors, doctors, and lawyers. And since the fall of 2020 through today, those children must be masked during class and on the playground, and have been barred from speaking during lunch. Like every other school in the country, this private school—which charges between $11,000...

UPDATE: This piece has been updated to reflect statements from Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Cornell Student Assembly president Valeria Valencia and Speech First.The Cornell University Student Assembly unanimously voted in March to approve a resolution that would require instructors to inform students about “traumatic content” being discussed in class.The university rejected this proposal because it violates academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, according to an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.“Faculty must also be free to provide trigger warnings if they so choose, but it must be a decision left up to the faculty member...