Police are investigating several posts calling for violence against Jewish students attending Cornell University in New York.
Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) are actively investigating online posts on a website unaffiliated with Cornell University containing threats of violence directed at Jewish students across the New York-based campus.
A Jewish student group at the university, Cornell Hillel, released an Oct. 29 statement calling attention to threats directed toward the building at 104 West, which houses the kosher and multicultural dining hall. Threats were also made against Jewish students, faculty, and staff.
“The Cornell University administration has been made aware of this concerning language, and the Cornell Police Department is monitoring the situation and is on-site at 104 West to provide additional security as a precaution,” the student group said.
“At this time, we advise that students and staff avoid the building out of an abundance of caution. We will continue to provide updates as additional information becomes available.”
In an Oct. 29 statement, Cornell University president Martha Pollack said the series of antisemitic messages threatening violence to the university Jewish community was “horrendous.”
“Threats of violence are absolutely intolerable, and we will work to ensure that the person or people who posted them are punished to the full extent of the law,” Ms. Pollack said.
“Our immediate focus is on keeping the community safe; we will continue to prioritize that,” she added.
According to Ms. Pollack, CUPD will remain on-site to ensure students and community members are safe. The FBI has also been notified of a potential hate crime.
The CUPD has said the evidence they have found so far suggests the “targeted locations were intentionally selected because of the perpetrator’s bias.”
The police have also called for the community to come forward with any information that might help them with their inquiries.
Jewish Students Feel Terrified, Abandoned
Cornell student leader Annie Vail took to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to share screenshots of some of the messages on a Cornell discussion forum calling for extreme violence against Jewish people. She also revealed that Jewish students are scared to leave their rooms in the wake of the threats.
