Dear Interim President Kotlikoff:

We urge you to make addressing antisemitism and ensuring student safety a cornerstone of your tenure as president of Cornell University. Under the previous administration, antisemitism was allowed to flourish, and the safety of Jewish students was shamefully neglected. Former President Martha Pollack’s failure to keep students safe and address rising antisemitism on campus led to her premature resignation.  

Under Pollack, Cornell was not a safe environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students. The campus was inundated with violent protests, hateful encampments, and acts of harassment and intimidation targeting Jewish students. These incidents culminated in some of the most egregious displays of antisemitism, including: 

- Russell Rickford, a university professor, publicly glorified Hamas’s October 7th attacks as “exhilarating” during a campus rally. 

- A Cornell student was arrested and imprisoned for threatening to kill Jewish students. 

- Cornell student groups defended Hamas’s terrorism, shifting blame onto Israel for the massacre of Israeli and American Jewish civilians.  

We were deeply disturbed by these events, which exposed a profound failure of Cornell’s administration. Despite the university’s professed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, administrators failed to enforce the student code of conduct, leaving Jewish students vulnerable while antisemitism flourished. 

As media headlines repeatedly called out Cornell’s inaction, the administration’s responses to antisemitic incidents have been consistently inadequate, including most recently offering a course promoting dangerous, explicitly antisemitic rhetoric. We hope that your installment will result in a profound change in Cornell’s approach to combating antisemitism on campus.    

President Kotlikoff, we recognize that you have inherited this unwelcoming campus environment. However, your leadership offers a crucial opportunity to chart a different course. We urge you to take decisive action to protect Jewish and pro-Israel students and make Cornell a place where antisemitism is not tolerated. 

Take a stand against antisemitism at Cornell.  

Sincerely,

[Your Name and Affiliation]