Cornell University cancels classes after student Patrick Dai was accused of threatening Jewish students

Cornell University has canceled Friday classes due to “extraordinary stress” amid a junior being federally charged with making antisemitic threats. 

Instead, Friday will serve as a “community day,” Provost Michael Kotlikoff and Christine Lovely, the vice president and chief human resources officer, said in an email to students and staff, school paper the Cornell Sun reported.

“No classes will be held, and faculty and staff will be excused from work, except for employees who provide essential services,” the email said. 

“We hope that everyone will use this restorative time to take care of yourselves and reflect on how we can nurture the kind of caring, mutually supportive community that we all value,” the email continued.

It comes after officials at the Ithaca, New York, university said antisemitic “threats of violence” appeared online over the weekend — the latest in a series of concerning incidents on college campuses across the U.S. since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last month.

On Tuesday, Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old junior at the Ivy League school, was charged with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of New York said. 

Prosecutors said that in an online discussion board, Dai allegedly threatened to “shoot up” a campus building. In another post he said he would “stab” or “slit the throat” of Jewish men, and rape or throw off a cliff Jewish women he encounters on campus, prosecutors said. 

He also said he would behead Jewish babies and threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you” Jewish people, prosecutors said, attributing the words to Dai.

School officials said that the threats specifically named the school’s Center for Jewish Living. The federal complaint said he admitted to making the threats.

He appeared in federal court Wednesday but did not enter a plea. He was assigned a federal public defender during the initial court appearance and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Nov. 15.

Adding to the heightened tensions on campus, university police on Wednesday received a report of a male subject displaying a pistol on campus. A search was conducted and police said the report was “unfounded.” University President Martha E. Pollack also said in a statement Wednesday that the crime alert was unsubstantiated, but “it adds to the stress we are all feeling.” 

“Cornell Police continue to have an increased presence on campus, and especially in high-priority areas,” she said.  

The Israel-Hamas war, which erupted after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, has triggered discriminatory incidents and threats against the Jewish and Muslim communities stateside. 

The Anti-Defamation League said last week that there’s been a nearly 400% increase in reported incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault based on preliminary data. And the Council on American-Islamic relations said last week it recorded nearly 800 complaints and reported bias incidents from Muslims nationwide since Oct. 7. 

Last month, a 6-year-old Palestinian boy was stabbed to death by his landlord in suburban Chicago, Illinois, after the landlord became obsessed with listening to conservative radio regarding the conflict in the Middle East.