Free Republic

‘We expected Hamas to kill Jews. We didn’t expect Americans to celebrate it.’Someone asked me the other day how I planned to commemorate October 7. I found myself speechless, befuddled by the question. How do you offer an elegy when the war is not yet over—and 101 hostages, those still alive and the bodies of the murdered, are not yet home? How do you remember a catastrophe when it is still unfolding? How do you mark a past event that feels as though it was a prelude to a much deeper darkness, whose dimensions we are still discovering? How do...

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...

As I walked around taking photographs of the Anti-Israel encampment at Cornell University, one of the participants kept calling after me -- “Julie! Julie, right? Haven’t we met before?” It was one of the appointed mediators for the student activists. She wore a yellow vest, carried a walkie-talkie, and used any pretense she could think of to strike up a conversation with non-students to quickly discern their intentions. A week before I visited, twenty-two students and two staff members had been arrested for staging a sit-in in Day Hall, the administrative center for Cornell. Shortly before that, multiple suspensions had...

The pro-Hamas protests that have engulfed campuses across the nation have claimed another victim, Cornell University president Martha E. Pollack, who announced in a surprise email Thursday that she is stepping down in June after a seven-year reign. The Ivy League school has been at the center of two controversies in recent times: its racist promotion of DEI at all costs and its failure to take effective action against antisemitism on its campus. Background:Ivy League School Offers Rock Climbing Class for Everyone But White StudentsCornell Professor Who Was 'Exhilarated' by Hamas's Attacks Is Now So Very Sorry (but Is He...

Comparably sized but more prestigious Cornell paid far less this fall, suggesting big payouts could continue into 2024. Cheers from GWU law professor who encouraged students to sue university. Class-action lawyers may have frowned when Cornell University agreed to pay just $3 million last fall to settle a lawsuit seeking tuition refunds from its shutdown of classroom instruction early in the COVID-19 pandemic – a far cry from Ivy League peer Columbia's $12.5 million payout for the same actions two years earlier. They are likely grinning now that a comparably sized but less prestigious private university, blocks from the White...

Misogyny and cultural “norms” subjugating women are widespread in much of the Islamic world. These include female genital mutilation, forced marriages, persecuting women for not dressing according to strict Islamic standards, “honor killings,” and much more.It’s no surprise then, but shocking and horrific nonetheless, that one “weapon” in Hamas’ inhuman massacre of over 1200 people in Israel on October 7, brutalizing thousands, and kidnapping more than 240, including young children and elderly women held hostage in Gaza, was the raping of Israeli women in the process. Underscoring that these are not individual criminal acts but part of something widespread and...

Amidst the chaos in the Middle East following Hamas' evil attack on Israel on October 7, there's been growing unrest on college campuses here in the United States. RedState has brought you numerous stories of protests and dueling faculty and student body letters, a disappointingly significant portion of which have espoused support for Hamas and condemnation of Israel. It's clear that the mayhem wrought by the early October attacks has exposed major fault lines running through academia, particularly in the Ivy League. Cornell University hit the headlines in mid-October after one professor proudly declared his exhilaration over the Hamas attacks....

CNN — Cornell University has canceled classes Friday to acknowledge the “extraordinary stress” its campus has been under as one of its students is accused of making violent antisemitic threats against Jewish people at the college, where unease over the Israel-Hamas war has been escalating for weeks. A junior at the university, 21-year-old Patrick Dai, has been arrested and federally charged in connection with a series of online posts over the weekend which threatened to kill and harm Cornell’s Jewish students, New York prosecutors say. Dai appeared in federal court Wednesday on a charge of making a threat using interstate...

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...

NEW YORK -- A Cornell University junior was arrested Tuesday for allegedly making violent online threats directed toward Jewish students at the school. Gov. Kathy Hochul says state police and the FBI's joint terrorism task force questioned him earlier Tuesday. Patrick Dai accused of posting antisemitic threats The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York says 21-year-old Patrick Dai has been arrested for posting antisemitic threats, including, "If you see a Jewish 'person' on campus follow them home and slit their throats." The feds say Dai is from the Rochester area and faces charges of posting threats to...

Cornell Student Arrested for Making Online Threats to Jewish Students on Campus Tuesday, October 31, 2023 For Immediate Release U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Patrick Dai, age 21, a junior at Cornell University who is originally from Pittsford, New York, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging him with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications. The announcement was made by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Alfred Watson, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); New York...

Patrick Dai, a Cornell Junior, has been charged.Patrick Dai, of Pittsford, posted threats to shoot up a multicultural dining room on campus to an online discussion site, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York said in a news release.104West, the dining room, serves food that meets Kosher, Halal and other religious guidelines. It is next to the university’s Center for Jewish Living, where several dozen Jewish students live on campus.Dai, a junior, also called for the deaths of Jewish people and threatened to bring an assault rifle to campus, prosecutors said. He was charged...

Cornell University was put on high alert after a series of “horrendous, antisemitic” messages — including threats to rape and gun down Jewish students and even behead babies — were posted on a public forum, school officials said. The upstate New York Ivy League school said campus cops were taking precautions — and had alerted the FBI to “a potential hate crime” just days after “(Expletive) Israel” graffiti was also scrawled on campus sidewalks. The “series of horrendous, antisemitic messages threatening violence” had specifically named 104 West, “the home of the Center for Jewish Living,” university president Martha Pollack said...

The FBI has been alerted after death threats were made against Jewish students at a prestigious US university from users operating under names including “jew jenocide" and "hamas warrior", Antisemitic posts calling for violence against Jewish students at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, were published on a forum for members of the institution's fraternities and sororities over the weekend, local media reported. Cornell has more Jewish students than any other Ivy League university - around 2,500. Police are now stationed outside a US university's Jewish centre after the messages, accompanied by headlines including “jewish people need to be killed”...

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....

A diversity and inclusion director at Cornell University has come under fire over disturbing social media posts supporting Hamas and dismissing the terror group’s slaughter of innocent civilians as a “resistance.” Derron Borders, of the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, voiced his support for Palestine and criticized Israel following the devastating invasion by Hamas terrorists that killed more than 900 people. “When you hear about Israel this morning and the resistance being launched by Palestinians, remember against all odds Palestinians are fighting for life, dignity, and freedom — alongside others doing the same — against settle colonization, imperialism, capitalism,...