A Cornell University dean has been caught saying the Ivy League school would allow a student club that supports terrorists to operate on campus, according to the government watchdog group Project Veritas.
"Political correctness is pervasive on campus … but we were shocked," Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on
DIRECTV Ch. 349 and
DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
O'Keefe said his investigator, posing as a Moroccan student facing bias at his current school and armed with a secret video camera, asked Assistant Dean for Students Joseph Scaffido if Cornell would support a "humanitarian group in the Middle East, northern Iraq and Syria."
"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 "student" says, according to O'Keefe.
Scaffido says on the video: "There are a lot of our student organizations that do things like that all over the world." The "student" continues: "If you did like supported like Hamas or something like that, is that a problem?"
According to O'Keefe, Scaffido answers: "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 or something like that. I think it's just the opposite. I think the University wants the entire community to understand what's going on in all parts of the world."
O'Keefe said Scaffido also advised the "student" how to obtain funding to send care packages to the groups, and how to bring a "freedom fighter" to Cornell to run a "training camp" for students. "It's just like bringing in a coach, to do a training on a sports team or something," the dean said, according to O'Keefe.
He said the video proves Cornell — which has received over $300 million in federal contracts and grants since 2000 and more than $190 million from New York state taxpayers since 2012 — is detached from reality.
"The analogy between bringing a Hamas or Islamic State freedom fighter to hold training camps to a coach holding training camps. He knew what we were talking about," O'Keefe told Steve Malzberg.
"It's frankly just shocking to the alumni, and to the donors of Cornell as well, based on the reaction we've seen … The office of Cornell University got flooded with phone calls from concerned alumni."
On Wednesday, the school issued a strong statement condemning the video,
according to the Cornell Sun newspaper.
Cornell President David Skorton said the idea the university would welcome terror groups is "ludicrous and absolutely offensive."
"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, according to The Sun.
But O'Keefe denies there was any tinkering.
"The dean claims he didn't really know what was going on — of course that's what everyone always says after their caught on videotape," O'Keefe said.
"But we presented all of these comments in context. Nothing was edited out of context.
"This is exactly what we saw and the fact that people are attacking my editing techniques shows that, in fact, something wrong was done."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.