Cornell University anti-Israel protesters set up encampment on the University’s Arts Quad, May 3, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Outgoing Cornell University president Martha Pollack, who will leave office at the end of June, was criticized this week for issuing a statement which praised pro-Hamas protesters and painted their detractors as bigots.
Pollack’s remarks followed a student group’s ending a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” it had erected on campus and lived in for three weeks. In them she expressed “gratitude” for the students’ conduct and said they “minimized the disruption caused” to university business despite that Jewish students complained that their rhetoric was discriminatory, inciting, and disruptive.
Pollack then launched a volley of seemingly underhanded comments at Jews and pro-Israel activists who opposed the demonstration, saying, “The participants in the encampment shared that members of our Jewish community who have criticized Israel have been targeted with the slur ‘kapo,’ which not only is deeply offensive but also trivializes the memory of the Holocaust.”
She continued, “Other students involved in the encampment shared experiences of being called ‘terrorists’ over the past few months in an expression of anti-Arab discrimination and hatred. No matter one’s political beliefs, using such rhetoric, which questions the basis of someone’s religious, cultural, ancestral, or any form of identity is unacceptable, and I implore everyone in our community to think carefully about their words.”
Anti-Zionist students at Cornell targeted Jewish students all academic year over their support for Israel, communicating threats, uttering hate speech, and fostering what observers described as a hostile environment. The situation there has prompted numerous warnings and statements from donors, lawmakers, and nonprofit organizations.
Just last month, a former student pleaded guilty to posting a series of threats to rape Jewish women and murder Jewish men on a popular social media forum. “Rape and kill all the jew women [sic], before they birth more jewish hitlers. jews are excrement on the face of the earth,” 21-year-old Patrick Dai wrote. Days earlier, history professor Russell Rickford proclaimed at a pro-Hamas rally that the terrorist organization’s atrocities were “exhilarating” and “energizing.” Throughout April and May, according to a parent who spoke with Fox News, the pro-Hamas encampment attracted “townie antisemites.” Before Oct. 7, Cornell University saw four antisemitic incidents in five yeas, one of which involved swastika graffiti.
Cornell University law professor William Jacobson, writing on his blog Legal Insurrection, said Pollack’s remarks about the protesters amounted to “an inversion of reality” which misrepresented the situation there.
“The anti-Israel perpetrators were portrayed as the victims, and the campus victims who had to put up with seven months of abuse were portrayed as the problem,” Jacobson wrote. “The statement really upset a lot of people.”
Others denounced the remarks, including Cornell student Talia Dorr, who told Fox News that the protesters were “terrorizing students and stifling any dissenting opinion.” She added, “They are endorsing terrorism. But I don’t need to tell you that.”
Pollack announced last week that she will retire at the end of June, a decision she reportedly made in December. Her departure makes her the third Ivy League president to quit the job in just the past six months. Elizabeth Magill left the University of Pennsylvania in December after telling a US congressional committee there are circumstances in which she would not punish students for clamoring for a genocide of Jews in Israel, and Claudine Gay resigned from Harvard University after being outed as a serial plagiarist by a series of investigative journalists.
The explosion of antisemitism that Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel set off on college campuses across the US has been the one constant variable in all three resignations.
Following the news, Pollack was accused of implementing policies which fostered antisemitism on campus.
“Martha Pollack was the architect of Cornell’s disastrous race-focused [diversity, equity, and inclusion] initiative that balkanized the campus and inevitably led to targeting of Jewish and pro-Israel students,” Jacobson tweeted. “While I wish her well in her personal life, it is time for the Cornell Trustees to turn the ship around, to eliminate DEI programming as is taking place elsewhere, and to refocus the campus on the inherent dignity of each individual without regard to group identity.”
US Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) was also critical of Pollack, saying she was “slow to condemn the rampant antisemitism on Cornell’s campus and has failed to protect Jewish students from vile terrorist sympathizers.” Tenney added, “Her resignation is no surprise, as she lacks the courage to lead during these difficult times.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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