Austin Franco #

Introduction #

Austin Franco is a Cornell University student, class of 2028, who went viral in June 2026 after responding to a job offer on the Handshake hiring platform with the message “Not interested in working for a jew. Thanks.” The exchange, posted to X by Gabe Einhorn, co-founder and CEO of the real estate startup that had offered Franco the role, drew more than two million views in under a week and led Cornell to report the incident to its Office of Civil Rights for investigation under university policy. In September 2026, the New York Post reported that Franco had returned to campus for his junior year to find himself a social outcast, even as he insisted to the tabloid that he had become a “campus celebrity.”

Background Information #

Franco, who hails from Virginia, applied to a growth/sales role at VrfyID — a New York City real estate startup co-founded by brothers Gabe and Aiden Einhorn — through Handshake on May 26, was accepted in the first round, and replied to a meeting request from Aiden Einhorn on May 29 with the message that made him nationally notorious. In a statement to The Cornell Daily Sun, Franco wrote that he had identified the brothers as Jewish based on their “first and last name, LinkedIn, and physiognomy,” an 18th- and 19th-century practice of judging character from facial features that is now regarded as pseudoscience. After Gabe Einhorn’s June 8 X post revealed Franco’s identity — commenters un-crossed his name from the screenshot — Franco wrote that he faced doxxing and intimidation, including people “harassing via email and phone employers” and making threats. Franco later claimed no disciplinary action had come of the episode, telling the conservative group Accuracy in Media in a July recording that Cornell had contacted him but that “as of now, they said there’s not anything going on on their back end,” while adding he did not know he was being recorded.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from the Einhorn brothers’ published account and reporting by The Cornell Daily Sun, the New York Post, and other outlets, which quoted Franco’s own messages and posts. The underlying message was never adjudicated in court, and Cornell’s Office of Civil Rights investigation had no publicly announced outcome as of the latest coverage; Franco has said he “didn’t say anything that could be classified as hateful.”

The core fact is documented in Franco’s own words: his Handshake reply read, “Not interested in working for a jew. Thanks.” He did not retract it when the post went viral, writing to Einhorn, “My experiences with Jews have not been pleasant, both in person and online … but on the aggregate that is not the case.” Rather than fade, the story grew: on August 17, Franco posted a black-and-white 1941 photo of American schoolchildren doing the Bellamy salute, which America abandoned because it looks identical to the Nazi salute, with the caption “Bring back the Bellamy salute.” In a September 8 post, he wrote that “White men need to organize outside the system and build their own fraternities,” claiming — per the Post — that Cornell accepts “around 3% straight White men” and that most white students “have crypto-Jew last names or are mixed blood”; he later said he had computed the figure himself from Cornell’s published demographics. Cornell’s June statement said the Handshake comment violated the job board’s terms of service and had been referred to the Office of Civil Rights for investigation, with the university condemning “antisemitism and all forms of hatred and discrimination in the strongest possible terms.”

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The consequences have been reputational and social rather than legal. When Franco returned to campus for his junior year, students told the New York Post he had become a pariah: “He’s been getting dirty looks, sitting alone in class,” one anonymous student said, and senior Ezra Galperin added, “It’s pretty clear that everyone’s turned against him.” The Cornell Daily Sun’s editorial board slammed him as a “grifter” “profiting off of performative outrage” in a September op-ed titled “Franco’s Run Around the Media.” The episode also generated a countercurrent of financial support: by September, the Post reported that Franco had collected nearly $40,000 across two GiveSendGo fundraisers. Handshake said his conduct violated its Terms of Service, and the university spokesperson confirmed the bias-incident referral. Franco, for his part, claimed to the Post that his semester had “been pleasant,” that he’d been “asked for my autograph and made new friends,” and that students called him “hot,” “cute” and “giga based.”

Current Status #

Franco remains enrolled at Cornell — the Independent reported in late July that he claimed no disciplinary action had been taken, and the September Post coverage confirms he is back on campus as a junior — but Cornell’s Office of Civil Rights referral remains the only formal process on record, with no announced outcome. The Post also reported that Franco was recently kicked out of his parents’ $1.75 million Virginia home, and that he continues to post hateful comments online. When reached by the Independent after the secret recording surfaced, Franco said he had been “suspicious” of the interviewer and that the released edit omitted that context; a supporting X post from the Free Expression Foundation claimed Accuracy in Media impersonated another organization to record him.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The viral message has defined Franco’s public identity: national and international coverage from the New York Post, the Independent, and the Chronicle of Higher Education has made him a symbol in the debate over campus antisemitism, while the Cornell Daily Sun’s “grifter” op-ed and Galperin’s “Austin Franco and Us” essay mark him as a polarizing figure among his own classmates. The fundraising windfall — nearly $40,000 by the Post’s September count — has drawn accusations that Franco is monetizing notoriety, and his reported estrangement from his family adds a personal cost that his own “campus celebrity” framing does not acknowledge. With an unresolved university investigation, a documented record of escalating posts, and peers describing him as a pariah, his standing at Cornell and his future employment prospects — the very field where the “not interested in working for a jew” message began — remain clouded by the coverage.