Russell Rickford, an associate history professor at Cornell University, is back at the Ivy League school in Ithaca, N.Y., after a “voluntary leave” following his reference to the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 terror as “energizing” and “exhilarating.”
Rickford is teaching socialism in American and African-American visions of Africa, according to the private university’s website.
On Oct. 17, Cornell president Martha Pollack and its board chair, Kraig Kayser, stated that they had learned the day beforehand of Rickford’s comments “at an off-campus rally where he described the Hamas terrorist attacks as ‘exhilarating.’” (Pollack stepped down from her role over the summer.)
“This is a reprehensible comment that demonstrates no regard whatsoever for humanity. As we said in yesterday’s statement, endorsed by senior leadership of the board of trustees, any members of our community who have made such statements do not speak for Cornell,” the duo added. “In fact, they speak in direct opposition to all we stand for at Cornell.”
Rickford subsequently apologized. Cornell told the New York Post “that the university did not discipline Rickord for his hateful remarks,” the Post reported. “It would not say whether Rickford was paid while on leave.”
“He found the Oct. 7 massacre, rape and torture of 1,200 civilians as ‘exhilarating.’ Unsurprisingly, he was welcomed back,” stated Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.). “This is the personification of elite educational rot and antisemitism at the core of so many anti-Israel campus protests.”
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) told the Post that she plans to send a letter to Cornell’s interim president stating that she is “deeply disgusted by Cornell’s decision to continue employing Mr. Rickford after his horrific statements that celebrated the murder of innocent people and incited violence.”
“Regardless of one’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the loss of human life—especially the lives of women, children and the elderly, including Holocaust survivors—should never be referred to as ‘energizing’ or ‘exhilarating,’” she plans to write. “By perpetuating these abhorrent views, professor Rickford has not only violated his ethical responsibility as an educator, but has also jeopardized the safety of the Jewish community and tarnished Cornell.”
