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Derron Borders

Overview

Derron Borders [Derron S. Borders] posted pro-Hamas and pro-terror material to Instagram in October 2023 as a senior “Diversity and Inclusion” official at Cornell University (Cornell). Borders also spread hatred of Israelis and Israel that same month.

The incident occurred following a series of Hamas terror attacks and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023. The terror attacks left about 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. 

Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

As of October 2023, Borders was listed as the director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) at Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business in Ithaca, New York, since November 2021.

As of November 2023, Borders was listed as Cornell’s “Residence Hall Director,” overseeing “the daily operations of the Language House” and working “closely with the Resident Language Fellows and residents to live out the mission of the program.”

As of November 2023, Borders went by the username “Derron” and the handle “@DerronStephen” on Twitter. As of the same date, he went by the username “Derron S. Borders” on LinkedIn.

Defending Hamas Terrorism

On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas attack on Israel, Borders reportedly reposted on Instagram Stories the text of an October 7, 2023 statement by Decolonize This Place that said: “When you hear about Israel this morning and the resistance being launched by Palestinians, remember against all odds Palestinians are fighting for life, dignity, and freedom – alongside others doing the same – against settler colonization, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, which the United States is the model.”

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.  

The post continued: “Let it be known the fight for Palestine against colonization, is a fight for the imagination that other worlds are possible, that genocide should not be accepted, and that people always have the choice of refusal and the right to resist. Free the land.”

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.

As of December 25, 2023, Hamas had fired over 10,600 missiles from Gaza at Israeli communities, with Hamas claiming 5,000 the day it launched the attack. While Hamas was the main group involved, members of other terror groups also joined in the atrocities.

Many Palestinian civilians, including women and children, also participated in the attack. In several instances, Gazans who worked in the targeted Israeli communities gave intelligence to Hamas on where to strike.

In a December 2023 poll, 57% of Gazans and 82% of Palestinians in the West Bank supported the terror attacks. 42% of Gazans were supportive of Hamas rule, up from 38% before the attacks, and 44% in the West Bank supported Hamas, up from 12%.

Hamas began by launching thousands of rockets at Israel and using motorized paragliders “to infiltrate Israeli territory and secure terrain.” Terrorist ground forces destroyed parts of the border fence with Gaza, murdering and kidnapping soldiers.

Terrorists then turned their attention to 22 communities around Gaza, where they went house to house to savagely murder, mutilate and kidnap anyone they found. They executed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children.

Terrorists beheaded children and babies, and massacred entire families, burning some alive who hid in their homes. Hamas terrorists kicked around the heads of beheaded victims like soccer balls. Israelis between the ages of three and 85 were kidnapped and taken forcibly to Gaza. Hamas has not allowed the Red Cross access to the hostages.

Over 360 unarmed young men and women were surrounded and slaughtered at one music festival alone. Bodies were publicly desecrated, with some dragged through the streets of Gaza, then beheaded.

Women were raped next to the bodies of dead friends. Some were raped and then shot in the head. Others, including young girls, were raped and murdered or mutilated in other ways. Israeli officials opened an unprecedented investigation into the widespread sexual assault. Forensic analysis of corpses showed evidence of torture and rape.

Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out the atrocities, including chopping off legs and raping the corpses of murdered victims.

Hamas intentionally targeted youth centers and elementary schools to execute and kidnap children. They also took stimulant drugs to give added energy to murder and maim. Nazis also took drugs during World War II to fuel their anti-Semitic massacres.

The atrocities were acknowledged as the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, including by U.S. President Joe Biden, who also compared Hamas to ISIS. Hamas attacked on the annual holiday of Simchat Torah, which that year was on Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath.

The Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians are crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The mass murder generated great sympathy for Israel from many countries but led to countless celebrations among Palestinians and anti-Israel organizations in America that back the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Hamas called the October 7, 2023 terror attacks “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before Israel was founded in 1948. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, European Union, Israel and other countries. Founded in 1987, it has killed thousands of Israeli civilians through mass shootings and suicide bombings. Hamas has also kidnapped children, families and the elderly and held them hostage in Gaza. It has desecrated [slide 2] dead bodies and launched numerous rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. 

On October 20, 2023, Borders posted on Instagram: “I, unequivocally, stand with Palestine…I encourage you all to do the work necessary to see where we are and where the right side of history is. This isn’t a matter of opinion…”

Support for a Terrorist

On October 28, 2023, Borders posted [slide 3] on Instagram Stories a video clip of terrorist Ghassan Kanafani explaining why Palestinians should not engage in peace talks with Israel.

Kanafani was a leading member and spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the terrorist organization’s early years. Kanafani announced the PFLP’s responsibility for the Lod Airport Massacre of May 1972 and was linked to the airport attackers. The attack killed 26 people and wounded 80 others.  

Hatred of Israelis and Israel

On October 22, 2023, referring to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Borders posted on Instagram, referring to Israelis as “occupiers.”

In the same post, Borders wrote: “...Western media is not accurately portraying what is going on and will always side with those who hold power within the imperialist settler occupier systems. It's important that we counteract the misinformation and propaganda… / #FreePalestinePS.”

On October 25, 2023, Borders’s Instagram Stories Highlights titled “derronborders” re-posted [slide 1] a graphic that accused Israel of “genocide.”

Biographical Information

As of October 2023, Borders was listed as Cornell’s “Chair of the Measurement and Accountability Committee as part of the SC Johnson College of Business Dean’s Leadership Council on Combatting Racism and Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.”

As of the same date, Borders was listed as the “Cornell Employee Assembly representative for the College.”

As of November 2023, Borders’s name had been removed from the above Cornell employee information page.

On October 10, 2023, Cornell reportedly admitted to being “made aware of” Borders’s comments but that Borders “has been on a leave of absence from the university for several months.” 

Borders’s LinkedIn said Borders graduated from the University of Utah (Utah) with a master's degree in linguistics in 2015 and from Bowling Green State University (BGSU) with a master’s degree in “College Student Personnel” in 2016. 

Social Media and Weblinks

Twitter:https://twitter.com/DerronStephen[Private]

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/derronborders/ [Deleted]

Instagram 2:https://www.instagram.com/derronstephen [Private]

Derron Borders
Status:
Professional
University:
Organizations:
N/A

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Last Modified:
06/23/2025

Photos & Screenshots

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