“Cornell really needs to get a handle on the poisonous ideology which has now inflicted campus”

“Cornell really needs to get a handle on the poisonous ideology which has now inflicted campus”

I appeared for an interview on NTD News with Kevin Hogan last week, on the subject of the threats against Jewish students at Cornell.

For background, see these posts, media coverage, and interviews:

• My Call To Action For The Cornell Board of Trustees
• FOX News Covers Professor Jacobson’s Call For Cornell Trustees To Dismantle DEI After History Prof’s “Exhilaration” At Hamas Attack
• Leftist Campus Embrace Of Hamas Barbarism: “We’re in the ‘suddenly’ phase” of Higher Ed collapse (Breitbart Morning News Radio)
• “Cornell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Jacobson’s call to evaluate antisemitism on campus” (Fox Digital)
• Toxic Atmosphere At Cornell For Jewish Students Is Getting Worse (Laura Ingraham on Fox News)
• How Did Student Patrick Dai Become Radicalized At Cornell? (multiple interviews including Stuart Varney on Fox Business)
• Campus Antisemitism Problem Did Not Start On October 7, It’s Been Building For 20 Years (Morning Joe, MSNBC)

Here is the NTD interview:

Transcript (auto-generated, may contain transcription errors)

Hogan (00:00):

Next we hear from a professor at Cornell University about the anti-Semitic threats leveled against students. He points to what he calls poisonous ideology as the cause. Take a look. Professor Jacobson, thank you for your time today. Is Cornell University doing enough to address these threats against Jewish students?

WAJ (00:19):

No, it’s not, it’s not addressing the underlying problems. It addressed a threat by a student. It called the police. The police investigated. That’s great. I’m glad they did that.

But how did the student get radicalized at Cornell? Based on the threats he posted, he got radicalized by the racial sort of narrative and racialization of everything that takes place on campus under the rubric of diversity, equity, and inclusion. If you look at his threats, he talked about settler colonial and all those sort of things that have now become deeply embedded at Cornell. So no.

I sent a demand to the Cornell Board of Trustees, an open letter to them two weeks ago, saying, do three things that address the underlying problem.

One is halt these new DEI initiatives until you can understand how it is feeding anti-Jewish sentiment on campus.

Two, adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association working definition of antisemitism, which recognizes that criticism of Israel is fair like any other country, but when it goes to the extreme and the excess and treats Israel differently than other countries, it becomes antisemitic. And that’s what you’re seeing happen at Cornell now. And that’s the, the fever on the campus.

And then the third thing is you’ve got to take this issue away from the current senior administration because they helped create the problem. The board of trustees needs to appoint an independent commission to look into these problems on campus.

Hogan (01:56):

Have you gotten any response from those three things?

WAJ (01:59):

No. And I know that media multiple times have reached out to Cornell for comment on my proposal and Cornell has declined to comment every single time.

Hogan (02:09):

So what needs to happen more in an immediate sense right here? Of course you’re addressing some of the underlying issues.

WAJ (02:15):

I think the Cornell administration needs to send a message that the gross demonization of Israel, which should be considered antisemitic when it is in excess, the way that it is now, is antisemitism. And that it should deal with that the way it would deal with anything else. That it would demonization of other groups on campus that violates the student code. I’m all for free speech, but Cornell has student codes and if they’re going to enforce it for one group, they should enforce it for all groups. They want have a wide open, free speech campus? Great. But you can’t regulate speech that you like and then punish speech you don’t like, which is what Cornell does now.

Hogan (03:00):

Professor Jacobson, these students are leaving campus, they’re afraid to sleep in their rooms. Do they have any resources to help them complete their coursework while dealing through all this?

WAJ (03:10):

I don’t know what Cornell is offering to them, but that really is, you know, a bandaid. That’s a fix. And certainly if there’s any support that can be given to students, I’m in favor of that.

But I think Cornell really needs to get a handle on the poisonous ideology which has now inflicted campus where everything is viewed through a racial lens. And Jews on campus get put into the demonized white category.

And that’s what you see in the anti-Israel movement on campus. They organize around race, they organize what they call ‘students of color’ against white Israel. And that is a poisonous atmosphere. This administration seems to be oblivious to it. And it’s not enough after there is a problem, after a student who, from all accounts, has no prior history of this, gets radicalized on campus and repeats these talking points that you hear all the time on campus, the administration needs to wake up.

Hogan (04:10):

Professor Bill Jacobson and also the founder of the Legal Insurrection. Thank you so much for your time.

WAJ (04:16):

Great. Thank you.

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