As Columbia University’s president, Egyptian-born Nemat ‘Minouche’ Shafik, insisted Wednesday that the Ivy League school was doing all it could to crackdown on rising anti-Semitism, the campus remains filled with a slew of mostly Muslim professors who have a history of spewing controversial anti-Israel/anti-Jewish remarks.
NY Post (h/t Nita) Ranging from a politics professor who declared that the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel was “awesome” to another who boasted “Yes, I’m with Hamas,” Columbia President Nemat ‘Minouche’ Shafik was forced to address some of her faculty’s remarks as she was grilled by lawmakers in Washington DC.
At least three faculty members — Joseph Massad, Mohamed Abdou and Katherine Franke — were mentioned specifically by name during the congressional hearing. Others, though, have also been ripped over their history of remarks.
Here’s are Columbia’s most controversial professors and their incendiary remarks:
A professor of modern Arab politics and history, Massad has been teaching at the Ivy League school for the past 25 years. Massad, who earned his PhD at Columbia in 1998, teaches within the university’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS), according to his bio.
The tenured academic has faced widespread calls to be fired ever since he referred to the Oct. 7 attack inflicted by Hamas terrorists as “awesome” and a “stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance.”
“The sight of the Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from Israel was astounding,” Massad penned in a 1,800 word essay published 24 hours after the bloodshed.
“Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them.”
A student-led petition calling for him to be axed over those remarks has received more than 78,000 signatures.
Massad, who once called Israel “a racist state”, has also previously come under fire for allegedly spewing anti-Israeli remarks in class and for comparing Hamas aggression against Israel to the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis during WWII.
Abdou was brought on as a visiting Columbia scholar for the spring 2024 semester and teaches a weekly class on “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition.”
The bio on Columbia’s website describes Abdou as “a North African-Egyptian Muslim anarchist interdisciplinary activist-scholar of Indigenous, Black, critical race and Islamic studies, as well as gender, sexuality, abolition and decolonization.”
Just days after the Oct. 7 attack, Abdou controversially declared on social media, “Yes, I’m with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.”
Dabashi is a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at the Ivy League school. He is also the current director of undergrad studies within the MESAAS department, per his faculty bio.
He’s come under fire in recent years for a slew of controversial social media posts, including a since-deleted one in which he blamed Israel for every “dirty” problem in the world.
“Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name ‘Israel’ will pop up in the atrocities,” Dabashi wrote in the 2018 Facebook post, cited by the Jewish Journal.
His remark was in response to a New York Times article that accused Israeli intelligence of gathering dirt on President Barack Obama’s then-national security aide.
In a separate post, Dabashi also allegedly bashed Zionists as “hyenas” – sparking calls from a pro-Israel student group for the professor to be rebuked.
Ahmed, a former-director at billionaire George Soros’ Open Society foundation, is now a law lecturer within Columbia’s school of public health, according to his bio.
He has previously been ripped for allegedly indoctrinating his students to hate Israel via his lectures, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In a video from one of his lectures prior to the Oct. 7 attack, Ahmed labeled Israel a “colonial settler state” that has “oppressed indigenous populations” and “displaced” Palestinians.
Franke, a law professor and activist, has been teaching at the school since 1999.
She was brought up during Wednesday’s hearing by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who claimed the professor had said, “All Israeli students who served in the I.D.F. [Israel Defense Forces] are dangerous and shouldn’t be on campus.”
It wasn’t immediately clear, though, where Franke made the remark. Franke later told The Post that Rep. Stefanik had mischaracterized her quote to the congressional hearing.
“I actually said, ‘many Israeli students who come to Columbia’s campus are coming right out of their military service and have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus’,” Franke said.
“I made this comment in an interview about the incident in which two Israeli students — participating in our joint degree program with Tel Aviv University — sprayed a noxious chemical on pro-Palestinian protesters. Their social media posts showed them recently performing service in the Israeli military.”
Franke also recently penned an op-ed in The Nation criticizing Columbia, in part, for threatening academic freedom and “waging war on dissent.” “The university is under pressure to root out any students or faculty critical of Israel — and it’s already caved,” the law professor wrote.
Harvard Law Professor-Emiritus, Alan Dershowitz, says “DEI” is the cause of rabid anti-Semitism at universities. He references Columbia professor Joseph Massad, who before he had been granted tenure, told an Israeli student he was not allowed to speak in his class until he was prepared to accuse Israel of war crimes.
Donovan Nuera says
I am surprised that Columbia students have not torn down any plaque or tablet or portrait of their former president from 1948-1953, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. He banned Commies from teaching. Maybe they don’t even know who that was???
US infidel says
Maybe time to quit wasting tax funds on stupid school.
Steve says
The extortionate tuition fees US universities charge international students like me, partly goes to finance the salaries of these “tenured” terrorist professors.
In other words, my tuition fees have indirectly reimbursed the salaries of Joseph Massad, Mohamed Abdou, Kayum Ahmed, and Hamid Dabashi.
This is gross injustice.
Brad Brendel says
I was looking at tese so called educators and was so amazed of the evil this university has forstered by hiring these people in the first place. Islam is not compatible with Judeo/Christian tenets which is the bedrock of our Constitution and has allowed this nation to prosper like no other in history. While in contrast no Muslim nation has ever known or given the freedom these despicable mpeople are given here. And this professor Franke speaks volumes. An unnatural,, mentally deranged homosexual in such a position. No wonder our Universities are so terrible in so many ways. The worst oft he worst have been, for decades, been at the advent of the indoctrination and insane policies of Godless ness, Marxism and certainly Satanism. Abolishing the propaganda machine known as the Department of Education would be a good start to eliminate these despicable people and make these colleges start academics. Simple as that.
BareNakedIslam says
I wonder how much money the US government gives Columbia?