Cornell Professor Who Called Hamas Attack ‘Exhilarating’ Takes Leave of Absence

The professor argued that his ‘horrible choice of words’ was meant to stress ’resistance to oppression.’

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a rally in Washington Square Park in New York City on Oct. 17, 2023. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A Cornell University professor who openly called the unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorist group “exhilarating” is taking a leave of absence for the rest of the semester.

Russell Rickford, a history professor who “specializes in African-American political culture after World War II, the Black Radical Tradition, and transnational social movements,” had been teaching a course titled “African American History From 1865” before taking his leave, according to his faculty biography.