Anti-Israel protesters target Cornell University’s main administrative building on the first day of classes this week, smashing the front door and plastering in red spray paint across the entrance of Day Hall “blood is on your hands” and “Israel bombs, Cornell pays.”

The students behind the criminal act told Cornell’s campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, they “had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration truly cares about: property.”

The vandals, who chose to remain anonymous, also slammed the administration for “trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy” during the new academic year, “knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine.” 

They also accused the new interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, of “engaging in bad-faith negotiations” with Cornell’s workers union and “deploying scab workers” to undermine the “solidarity” and “power” of the ongoing strike. 

The university has struggled with staff shortages after more than 1,200 university workers, including custodians, food service employees, and mechanics, went on strike at the start of move-in week after failing to agree on a new contract with the administration. The strike has resulted in several campus dining halls being shut down. 

The activists pledged to “continue to take action and escalate for divestment, for a free Palestine, for land back, and for all liberation struggles resisting imperialism,” disavowing “debates and peaceful protests” as never being “enough to achieve the change we demand.” 

Mr. Kotlikoff and Interim Provost John Siliciano sent a campus-wide email shortly after the vandalism incident, reaffirming that “acts of violence, extended occupation of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” the Cornell Daily Sun reports. 

The administrators did not directly address the incident at Day Hall, but instead, expressed the need to balance freedom of speech with maintaining “a learning environment free of unlawful harassment and discrimination.”

They also provided updated guidance on the university’s approach to protests and campus encampments, directing students who wish to occupy areas of campus overnight to submit a registration request with the university. 

“An unapproved encampment of indeterminate duration would displace scheduled events and deprive others in our community of access to common spaces,” the administrators wrote. 

“While some might argue the greater value of certain protest activity over other activities, the university should not and will not privilege some events over others based on the content or purpose of the activity,” they added. 

The university’s vice president for university relations, Joel Malina, later issued a statement condemning the vandalism, announcing that university police were conducting a “thorough investigation” and that “those responsible will be subject to suspension and criminal charges.” 

A law professor at Cornell, William Jacobson, told the New York Post that the incident was a “bad omen” for the coming academic year. 

“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,” Mr. Jacobson said. 

Over the past year, Cornell, like many other elite American universities, was rocked by anti-Israel protests on campus amid Israel’s ongoing defensive war in Gaza. 

The Ithaca, New York-based Ivy saw one of the most high profile antisemitic incidents last fall, including an incident in which a student posted a message on a university social media forum threatening to murder and rape members of the university’s Jewish community. The student faced criminal charges and was sentenced to nearly two years for his anonymous posts. 

Cornell also came under fire when a university professor was heard at a pro-Palestine rally describing Hamas’s deadly terror attack on Israel on October 7 as “energizing.” He was subject to a semester leave of absence. 

By the end of the academic year, the presiding university president, Martha Pollack, resigned from her post, describing the decision as “mine and mine alone” and that “after seven fruitful and gratifying years as Cornell’s president — and after a career in research and academia spanning five decades — I’m ready for a new chapter in my life.”

Ms. Pollack was criticized for praising the anti-Israel demonstrators behind an 18-day encampment after she issued a statement expressing her “gratitude” to the protestors for remaining peaceful. The Anti-Defamation League, in its “campus antisemitism report card” gave the university a D grade for its handling of antisemitism.