Cornell professor who praised Oct 7 Hamas attack joins another anti-Israel protest on campus
A Cornell University professor who was accused of "justifying terror" after describing Hamas' bloody Oct. 7 operation in Southern Israel as "exhilarating" is coming under fire again for taking part in an anti-Israel march on the college campus this week, when protesters could be heard chanting "long live the intifada" before crashing a career fair.
Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history at Cornell University, was seen on video with a keffiyeh around his shoulders marching with dozens of anti-Israel supporters on campus Wednesday.
Some of the protesters, many of whom wore face masks and were also clad in keffiyehs, carried Palestinian flags and signs reading, "Cornell divest from genocide" and "defund genocide."
The boisterous, pan-banging protesters eventually disrupted a career fair at the Statler Hotel on campus, as Rickford could be seen on video looking on and clapping his hands outside.
School officials said the demonstrators pushed past school police officers, although it does not appear that Rickford was part of the group that burst into the career fair.
"Guests of the university felt threatened. And students were denied their ability to experience the career fair," Joel Malina, the vice president of university relations at Cornell said in a statement. "This behavior is unacceptable, a violation of university policy, and illegal."
One Jewish student told the New York Post that the instructor’s presence at the protest was "insane" and another accused him of "emboldening hate." Video shows the group chanting, "long live the intifada." Intifada is an Arabic word for a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement.
Rickford, who specializes in African American political culture, was roundly condemned last year when he made inflammatory comments about Hamas’ sneak terror attack that killed 1,200 people and led to the current war in Gaza.
"It was exhilarating, it was energizing…. I was exhilarated," Rickford said at the time. He later walked back the comments and apologized, describing the speech as "reprehensible."
The self-identified "secular Marxist" eventually went on leave amid the media firestorm over his comments about the Hamas killing spree against hundreds of civilians, including American citizens, but he has now returned to the college.
Amanda Silberstain, vice president of Chabad and Cornellians for Israel, an Israel advocacy group on campus, said Rickford marched with students to the Statler Hotel but is unsure if he went inside.
"He was wearing a keffiyeh and smiling. Rickford knows he’s immune from consequences," Sillberstein told the Post. "We have a professor who is promoting antisemitic narratives and emboldening hate."
Malina said that students who violated university policies during the protest would be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards for "immediate action including suspension" while faculty and staff would be referred to human resources.
"These individuals will also be subject to potential criminal charges," Malina said.
Cornell provided Fox News Digital with a prior statement from Molina when asked for comment about Rickford’s latest actions.
"Last October, Professor Russel Rickford made a horrific comment at an off-campus rally in downtown Ithaca. As then-President Pollack and Board Chair Kayser noted at the time, his comment was reprehensible and demonstrated a complete disregard for humanity. Professor Rickford apologized for his comments and took a voluntary leave of absence for the remainder of the academic year."
"Consistent with well-established principles of academic freedom, Cornell has a process for considering whether public statements such as those expressed off campus by Professor Rickford at a political rally fall under the category of protected speech, or rather demonstrate prohibited bias, discrimination, or harassment. Given that Professor Rickford’s comments were made as a private citizen in his free time, the university’s academic leadership has concluded that Professor Rickford’s conduct in relation to this incident did not meet that high bar."
Fox News Digital was unable to reach Rickford for comment.
Rickford's comments on political violence go as far back as a decade.
In two videos reviewed by Fox News Digital, one from 2021 and another from 2014, Rickford discussed his desire for an anti-racist "insurgent" group to take power in the United States. In one of the videos, he said some White people are ready to commit "race suicide" and went on to discuss the "politics of violence" while simultaneously attacking the ideals of civility.
During a webinar hosted on a Cornell platform in February 2021, Rickford endorsed "radical frameworks for anti-racism." The radical frameworks call for a fundamental revolutionary change in society to change the distribution of wealth in neo-Marxist fashion.
"Radical anti-racists … knew justice required not … dialogue … but genuine reallocations of resources and power. Attacking the roots of White supremacy meant challenging the normal operations of capitalism."
Rickford has also said that the Black Lives Matter movement "reflects this more … redistributive mode of anti-racism," adding that "What we need is not more civil dialogue [but] more insurgent popular anti-racist movements that fight the whole apparatus of oppression."
Fox News’ Hannah Grossman contributed to this report.