Cornell University placed a professor with a history of anti-Israel activism on leave this week following his attempt to exclude an Israeli student from participating in his course on Gaza, Jewish Insider has learned. 

A Cornell spokesperson told JI that “a complaint was filed” against Eric Cheyfitz, a professor of American studies and humane letters, “who admitted to actions that violated federal civil rights laws and fell short of the university’s expectations for student interactions.”

“Based on the findings of this investigation, the faculty member is not teaching this semester and significant disciplinary action is being recommended,” the spokesperson said. A source familiar with the course told JI that Cheyfitz informed the Israeli student that he was not welcome in the class. Cheyfitz did not respond to a request for comment from JI. 

Cheyfitz, who is Jewish, was previously involved with Cornell’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and has served as a faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. He began teaching the course, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” last spring semester. 

The course description states that the class aims to teach students how to “analyze Indigenous perspectives on political, social, and environmental systems,” in the context of a “global war against an ongoing colonialism,” as well as explore themes such as “Indigeneity,” “Resistance,” “SettlerColonialism,” and “Genocide” in both “international law and Indigenous contexts.”  

Three weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, Cheyfitz also offered a “teach-in” titled “Gaza, Settler Colonialism, and the Global War Against Indigenous People.”

In May, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff objected to the course. “Cornell courses should provoke thought and present multiple viewpoints, rather than transmit pre-formed views of a complex conflict, and I personally find the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of the State of Israel and the ongoing conflict,” Kotlikoff wrote in an email to faculty member Menachem Rosensaft after he raised concerns about the class. 

Rosensaft, an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School, told JI on Friday that he is confident Cornell administration is “doing everything in their power to see to it that no Cornell students, including Israeli and Jewish students, are discriminated against, harassed or otherwise abused.”

The disciplinary action against Cheyfitz comes as some have criticized Cornell for its decision to allow Professor Russell Rickford, who in 2023 called the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks “exhilarating” and “energizing,” to return to Cornell earlier this year as an associate professor of history following a leave of absence. In an interview with JI in March, Kotlikoff said Rickford was allowed back because his statements were “not in [the] classroom and we have no evidence of Professor Rickford doing anything in the classroom.”

Cornell’s ongoing talks with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions in federal funds that were cut over an alleged failure to address campus antisemitism are currently stalled.