Jewish Students at Cornell Are Hurting — But No One Seems to Care

The clock tower at Cornell University. Photo: Clarice Oliveira.

From a young age, I learned to stand up for what I believe in with great pride. But I was also taught that actions have consequences, and that I would be responsible for what I did.

While I appreciate Cornell University’s strong commitment to freedom of expression, the administration must ask itself where the line is drawn between protected speech and unprotected speech; between what is permitted and what is not. While I cannot say with absolute certainty, my sneaking suspicion is that, if this type of rhetoric were directed at any other minority group, whether it be racial or ethnic, the response from the university would be astronomically different.

Students come to Cornell expecting to be protected from threats and harassment, and the administration has a responsibility to maintain a learning environment in which every student can feel comfortable going to class without fear of intimidation, and express their ideas without being attacked.

When we walk through a campus literally vandalized with spray painted profanity, and have our classes disrupted by loud chants for violence, many Jewish students feel as though Cornell is failing us in this regard.

The Community Belonging section of the Cornell Student Code of Conduct states that “students, faculty, and staff with different backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn, innovate, and work in an environment of respect…”

Below that, it details that “to assemble and to protest peacefully and lawfully are essential to academic freedom and the continuing function of the University as an educational institution.”

Furthermore, the code of conduct clearly states that disorderly conduct, harassment, misconduct related to student organizations, property damage, and disruption of university activities are forbidden.

Accordingly, I have a few questions I feel compelled to ask.

When Jewish students trying to learn in the classroom are distracted by their peers shouting “From the River to the Sea” just out the window, does this count as harassment and a disruption of university activities?

Do the students shouting those hateful words know the meaning behind them, regardless of their individual intent? Are they aware that those words are a rallying cry for the complete destruction of the State of Israel, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the entirety of the land that is modern-day Israel, at the expense of the one Jewish state on planet earth? This phrase is used by terrorist organizations and was cited as a component of the US House of Representatives’ censuring of Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Allowing students to shout this phrase and disrupt classes does not cultivate “an environment of respect.”

When students march on campus and call for the “globalization of the intifada” and shout that “resistance is justified,” are they actually protesting peacefully or are they calling for violence against Jewish and Israeli students?

We must consider the context where many, including a Cornell professor, are characterizing the murders, violence, and rapes of October 7 as “resistance.” Is that the type of resistance being called for on our campus? If so, using this term publicly would certainly be enough to cause “significant emotional or psychological harm,” which falls under the Assault and Endangerment clause of the student code of conduct.

The first and second Intifadas were periods of violence that claimed the lives of thousands of Jewish people as a result of indiscriminate terrorist attacks including stabbings and suicide bombings. Will the new Intifada include the brutal raping of innocent civilians or the kidnapping of the elderly from their homes and holding them hostage in underground tunnels like we saw on October 7?

At these very same protests that claim that “resistance is justified,” students, in the same breath, have also been calling for a ceasefire. One would think that resistance and ceasefire would be mutually exclusive, given that resistance implies action, and ceasefire lack thereof. It appears that these calls for a ceasefire are actually calls for a one-sided ceasefire. Do they suggest that there be no defense against violent “resistance?” Because if they do, they might actually be antisemitic. Holding Israel to a double standard, in which she has no right to defend herself against her attacking enemies, meets the criteria for anti-Zionism becoming antisemitism.

A few weeks ago, students vandalized our campus in the middle of the night by spray painting slurs like “F*ck Israel” and “Zionism = Genocide.” This not only costs the university time and resources to clean up, but also signals to Jewish students that our peers don’t believe that we have a right to self determination, like every other religious and ethnic group in the world.

Not only is it factually inaccurate that Israel is acting with an intent to kill all the people of Gaza, but supporting the notion that a movement of the Jewish people wanting self determination in their ancestral homeland is genocide is ludicrous.

What constitutes misconduct? Is hosting die-ins in academic buildings during the school day and disrupting classes for Jewish and non-Jewish students alike permitted?

Is hanging posters from Willard Straight Hall that read “From Ithaca to Gaza Intifada Intifada” and “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” not striking fear in a portion of the student body?

When Jewish students continue to be intimidated and feel there is no room for them and their beliefs on campus, the chasm between anti-Zionism and antisemitism begins to shrink rapidly. Inherently, anti-Zionism and antisemitism needn’t be inextricably linked. However, when a student, using the pseudonym “Hamas Soldier” on our campus publishes threats to “shoot up” the kosher dining hall and “rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females” in the wake of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, anti-Zionism and antisemitism are, perhaps, more closely related than ever.

I am not sharing these heavy sentiments to inflame tensions further or to exacerbate anyone’s pain. The death of innocent civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim or Jewish, Christian or Druze, is horrible. It is tragic. It is irreparable.

But inciting hate and violence on our campus does not honor anyone’s life. Intimidating and isolating students in Ithaca does not advance any cause or solve a complex and multifaceted conflict in the Middle East. I am using this strong language to convey the distress of the Cornell Jewish community. We are hurting. We are in distress. We want answers to our questions.