Cornell dean said ready to help ‘student’ start terror club

An official at Cornell University is in hot water after a secret recording published earlier this week appeared to show him advising a prospective student how to promote terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Hamas on campus.

The video, produced by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, appeared to show Joseph Scaffido, assistant dean of students for student activities at Cornell, telling a prospective Moroccan student that the school would okay clubs that support “freedom fighters” in the Islamic State.

Little did he know that the student was an undercover reporter.

“I think it would be important, for especially these people in the Islamic State Iraq and Syria, the families — the freedom fighters in particular, and their families … to maybe just educate, but to maybe send them care packages whether it be food, water, electronics,” the reporter said, referring to the terrorist group as a “humanitarian” organization.

“There are a lot of our student organizations that do things like that all over the world,” Scaffido replied. Asked if the club could support Hamas, he said the university wouldn’t regulate campus groups.

Both the Islamic State and Hamas are regarded as outlawed terrorist groups by the United States government.

“The university is not going to look at different groups and say you’re not allowed to support that group, because we don’t believe in them… I think it’s just the opposite, I think the university wants the entire community to understand what’s going on in different parts of the world,” the assistant dean said. The surrounding town of Ithaca, New York would be receptive to the student group and its wish to invite Islamic State militants over as guest speakers, he said.

Cornell President David Skorton slammed Project Veritas, deriding the notion of inviting terrorist groups like Hamas and the Islamic State to campus as “ludicrous and absolutely offensive,” according to a report by the school’s newspaper.

“It is shameful that any individual would pose as a student facing racial discrimination at another university, ask leading questions on hidden camera about Cornell’s tolerance for differing viewpoints and backgrounds, and then conveniently splice together the resulting footage to smear our assistant dean and our university,” Skorton said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.

Although Skorton said he welcomed free expression at the university, he insisted that violence would not be tolerated.

“Cornell has an unwavering commitment to the free and responsible exchange of ideas,” he said. “However, we remain vigilant in maintaining an appropriate balance of freedom of expression within accepted boundaries. Of course, incitement to violence is not protected and would never be tolerated on our campus.”

Cornell maintains an applied sciences campus in New York City that was founded in conjunction with Technion, a public university in Haifa world renowned for its programs in science and engineering.