Free Republic

Three activists banned from campus for three years A professor was among several climate protesters who during commencement defaced the statue of Andrew Dickson White, one of Cornell University’s founders, as a message to stop the school’s “fossil fuel complicity.” Early Saturday morning, the group Cornell on Fire, a “coalition of Cornellians and community members calling for a just and comprehensive university-wide response to the climate emergency,” put a blindfold over White’s face along with a poster protesting Cornell’s association with the fossil fuel industry, The Cornell Daily Sun reports. According to a press release from the group, Scientist Rebellion...

A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests and was asked to surrender by US immigration officials says he was leaving the United States, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety. Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies and dual citizen of the UK and The Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.

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 new spacesuit design (illustrated) that collects urine and recycles it into drinking water weighs around 8 kilograms and can purify half a liter of water in five minutes. ================================================================ In the science-fiction series Dune, the desert-dwelling Fremen of the arid planet Arrakis recycle their body’s moisture using specially designed outfits called stillsuits. Inspired by such imaginings, a new prototype spacesuit converts astronauts’ urine into drinkable water, researchers report July 12 in Frontiers in Space Technology. “I’ve been a fan of the Dune series for as long as I can remember,” says Sofia Etlin, a space medicine and policy researcher...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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”...

The bust was modeled from life just before Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. It was created by American sculptor Vinnie Ream, the first woman to be granted a federal commission by the United States, according to the university’s website. It was purchased and donated to the campus by Ezra Cornell, founder of the university. Its scheduled return to public viewing comes amid concerns over its removal among some Cornell donors and alumni. The public was first alerted of its removal by an article in The College Fix in late June 2022. The Fix was told of the situation by Cornell...

The Cornell University Library has removed a bust of President Abraham Lincoln and a bronze plaque of the Gettysburg Address after reportedly receiving a complaint. Randy Wayne, a professor of biology at Cornell, said the library had removed the display, which had been there since 2013, after "someone complained," the College Fix reported . In a statement to the Washington Examiner, university spokeswoman Rebecca Valli said the bust of Lincoln "was part of a temporary exhibit on the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address" and that it had been on display from 2013-2021. With the display gone, only an empty...

President Joe Biden's nominee to oversee the to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was arrested for stealing in 1995, it was revealed on Wednesday. Since the White House announced it was tapping Cornell University professor Saule Omarova, 55, to lead the agency overseeing the country's largest banks, revelations about the Soviet-born academic's radical views have surfaced. They've also created an uphill battle to her first hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. According to the latest report, Omarova was arrested in Madison, Wisconsin on a 'retail theft' charge.

A Cornell University course titled “BIPOC Rock Climbing,” was originally restricted to “people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.”.. When Campus Reform contacted the school, Cornell officials edited the course description to remove the race-based enrollment restriction. Cornell University altered the course description of a racially-segregated physical education course offered to students during the Spring 2021 academic semester after Campus Reform reached out for comment. The class, entitled “BIPOC Rock Climbing," was originally restricted to “people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color," before its description was edited to...

Ivy League schools have the reputation as the best universities in the nation. But, a new Cornell policy for Fall 2020 which gives people of color an exemption from the school’s mandatory flu vaccination is turning heads. How can an equal opportunity educator require only its Caucasian students to get vaccinated? Cornell Offers Exemption To Mandatory Flu Vaccination The prestigious university is requiring students to get flu vaccines. It’s mandatory, but Cornell Health is giving exemptions to people of color. Campus Reform reports that Cornell Health’s vaccine requirement FAQ reads, “Students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person...

Although the U.S. is on a record streak for job-creation, many Americans still feel like they can't get ahead — it's not their imagination. The last three decades have seen the economy churn out more and more jobs that offer inadequate pay, a group of researchers found. "The history of private-sector employment in the U.S. over the past three decades is one of overall degradation in the ability of many American jobs to support households — even those with multiple jobholders," they wrote. The group wants to popularize a new economic metric, called the Job Quality Index, that goes beyond...

Pentagon research project called "Insect Allies." Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project involves using gene-editing techniques like CRISPR to infect insects with modified viruses that could help make America's crops more resilient. If a cornfield were hit by an unexpected drought or suddenly exposed to a pathogen, for example, Insect Allies might deploy an army of aphids carrying a genetically modified virus to slow the corn plant's growth rate. According to the DARPA website, these "targeted therapies" could take effect in a single growing season, potentially protecting the American crop system from food security threats...

The former president of Planned Parenthood told a crowd of impressionable young college students Thursday that abortion is essential to gender equality. The Cornell Daily Sun reports Gloria Feldt, who led the abortion chain in the 1990s and early 2000s, spoke at Cornell University during an event sponsored by Cornell Hillel. The title of her talk was “3 Truths About Sex, Power and Leadership.” Like many pro-abortion feminists, Feldt claimed that abortion (women’s legal ability to kill their unborn babies) is empowering for women as they compete with men for power. “Sex is about power, more than anything else,” Feldt...