Cornell University
Cornell UniversityiStock

Anti-Israel protesters vandalized the main administrative building of Cornell University on Monday, the Cornell Daily Sun student newspaper.

The incident occurred on the first day of classes of the 2024-2025 academic year. The vandals broke the glass of the entrance doorway of Day Hall and painted “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” in red at the entrance.

The vandals wrote in an anonymous letter to the student newspaper, “We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration truly cares about: property.”

“With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine," they said.

Cornell Vice President for University Relations Joel M. Malina said in a statement, “We are appalled by the graffiti spray painted, and glass shattered overnight along the front entrance of Day Hall. Acts of violence, extended occupation of buildings, or property damage (including graffiti) will not be tolerated and will prompt an immediate response from public safety.”

Cornell Law professor William A. Jacobson blamed the university's "weak response" to anti-Israel protests during the previous academic year for the escalation on the first day of the new semester.

“Given the weak response at Cornell last academic year to intimidation tactics by anti-Israel activists, it is no surprise that they have upped the aggressiveness by opening the semester with vandalism and destruction of property," Jacobson said, calling the vandalism a "bad omen."

Last year, a Cornell student was arrested for posting anonymous threats to shoot and stab Jews in Cornell’s kosher dining hall on a Greek life forum following the Hamas massacre of October 7. The student, Patrick Dai, guilty in April to posting threats to kill or injure another person using interstate communications.

Earlier this month, he was sentenced in federal court to 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release by Judge Brenda Sannes, according to federal prosecutors.

In addition to the threats, a series of antisemitic graffiti messages were left around the campus following the October 7 massacre.

Cornell University history professor Russel Rickford told students at a rally that the Hamas massacre was “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

In March, as part of a campaign against antisemitism, activists mailed a brochure to all high schools in the New York City metropolitan region urging them to discourage Jewish students from applying to Cornell University.