Update, Feb. 23, 4:50 p.m.: This article has been updated to include comments from the Hanover Police Department Captain Jim Martin on a threat Dartmouth alerted its campus community to on Friday and to state that the University of Pennsylvania also received an email threat.
At noon on Feb. 23, Cornell Public Safety informed students of an “anonymous” and “unsubstantiated” email threat to campus.
Associate Vice President for Public Safety David Honan described these threats as including “hateful, incendiary language” and “threat[ening] violence” against Cornell and other universities. Honan stated that these threats were especially hurtful toward “Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, faculty and staff.”
Members of the Dartmouth community received a similar message regarding “an anonymous email threatening violence that used hateful rhetoric based on religion and national origin” that had been investigated by the Hanover Police Department. According to Keiselim Alfredo Montás, director of safety and security at Dartmouth, several universities received an identical message.
Hanover Police Department Captain Jim Martin told The Sun that Dartmouth College safety and security informed the department at around 10:40 a.m. of a threatening email to several Dartmouth email addresses.
“It was a threat of an active shooter, and it was very vague, and it was very similar to some past almost template-like emails that have been going around during the past year,” Martin said.
Martin did not confirm that this email contained the same threat that Cornell received. However, Honan stated that the email Cornell received was “identical” to one received by “a number of other universities.”
Martin said that the message was considered a hoax because of its lack of specificity and having been sent to numerous other universities.
“It was determined through the office in a preliminary investigation in coordination with other law enforcement agencies that a similar message with a similar narrative was transmitted to other schools at approximately the same time,” Martin said. “It was nonspecific as far as the location and time that something would happen.”
University of Pennsylvania police were also notified of a violent email threat “that used hateful rhetoric based on religion and political affiliation,” according to an email sent to the UPenn community from the Penn Division of Public Safety.
Cornell University Media Relations declined to comment on the specific contents of the threats or any further planned response from the University. Cornell Police are investigating the origins of the email threat, according to Honan. Cornell University Media Relations declined to comment on the status of this investigation.
This email threat comes nearly four months after Patrick Dai ’24 was charged in connection with violent antisemitic threats that were posted on Greekrank, an anonymous online forum. Dai currently awaits trial in Broome County Jail after a federal judge denied his detention appeal in December.
Members of the Cornell community may report threats to personal or community safety to CUPD by calling 607-255-1111 or 911 for emergency assistance. Instances of non-emergency bias can be reported through the bias incident form.