ITHACA — A white Cornell University student has been sentenced to 1 1/3 to four years in state prison for the hate crime stabbing last February of a black student who was visiting the Ivy League campus from another college.

In court Monday, Nathan Poffenbarger apologized to his victim, Charles Holiday, a 23-year-old Brooklyn resident who was a senior at Union College in Schenectady at the time of the attack.

“Let me assure you, your injury is not due to who you are, but who I had become due to my emotional state,” Poffenbarger said in a letter read by his defense attorney, Joseph Joch. “I’m anything but a racist, but I acted like one that night.”

Poffenbarger, 21, of Woodsboro, Md., pleaded guilty in December to felony assault as a hate crime and tampering with evidence.

In arguing successfully for the maximum possible sentence, Tompkins County District Attorney Gwen Wilkinson noted the severity of the charges and Mr. Holiday’s ongoing nerve damage and psychological trauma.

Police said Mr. Holiday was with a group of friends on the Cornell campus when they encountered Poffenbarger, who began taunting them with racial slurs before stabbing Mr. Holiday. Poffenbarger was reported to have been drinking and was thrown out of a fraternity party before the stabbing. He later tried to dispose of the weapon, police said.