Cornell cancels classes due to 'extraordinary stress' on campus after Patrick ... trends now
Cornell University has announced a 'community day' and is set to cancel classes on Friday after a student was caught making threats against Jews on campus.
In an email to the prestigious college's Ithaca and Geneva campuses, university heads said the decision has been made due to 'extraordinary stress' of the recent developments.
'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 read.
It comes after student Patrick Dai, 21, was arrested for making heinous antisemitic threats online, including warning 'watch out Jews' and 'your synagogues will become graveyards.'
Cornell student Patrick Dai, 21, confessed to making heinous threats against Jews after FBI agents traced his IP address to the college campus and his hometown
All classes at Cornell are set to be cancelled on Friday as part of a 'community day' following Dai's actions, as university heads said the decision was been made due to 'extraordinary stress' on campus
The closures at Cornell will see all non-essential university faculty and staff excused from classes on Friday, while some professors already offered Zoom class options for struggling students, according to the Cornell Sun.
The email added that some activities, such as sports, may be hard to reschedule and will still go ahead as planned on Friday.
Cornell leadership made the decision on the same day Dai was hauled into federal court on Wednesday in shackles, after he confessed to making the disturbing threats.
He made the warnings, including calling Jews 'excrement on the face of the earth' and declaring that 'no Jew civilian is innocent of genocide', on an online college forum that the FBI traced to his IP address.
Dai has been ordered to be held without bail, which authorities said was due to the troubling nature of his threats to shoot, stab and kill 'pig Jews.'
The posts also included a slew of pro-Hamas remarks and threats to target '104 West' - the Cornell campus Center for Jewish Living.
'Gonne shoot up 104 west. Allahu akbar! from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! glory to hamas! liberation by any means necessary!' read one of his posts from October 29.
'R*pe and kill all the jew women before they birth more Jewish Hitlers,' another of the heinous threats said.
Of the several messages left on the school's Greekrank page - a forum meant for fraternity and sorority reviews - were messages with the headlines 'Eliminate Jewish living from Cornell Campus' or 'Israel deserved 10/7'
The threats sent the campus on high alert and closed the kosher dining hall out of fear for student safety. In his court appearance, Assistant US Attorney Geoffrey Brown revealed that Dai visited the very campus dining facility he had threatened to shoot up in his posts online.
The student's actions sparked widespread panic on the college
