As Columbia University’s president insisted Wednesday that the Ivy League school was doing all it could to crackdown on rising antisemitism, the campus remains filled with a slew of professors who have a history of spewing controversial remarks.
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 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:
Joseph Massad:
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.
Antisemitism controversy at Columbia University: Key events
- Columbia University president Minouche Shafik was accused of “gross negligence” while testifying before Congress. Shafik refused to say if the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
- More than 100 Columbia professors signed a letter defending students who support the “military action” by Hamas.
- Antisemitic posters depicting Israel as a skunk appeared on campus — which experts liken to a propaganda poster used by the Nazis in World War II.
- Radical anti-Israel activists Charlotte Kates and Khaled Barakat told Columbia students a two-hour tirade, “There is nothing wrong with being a fighter in Hamas” in a seminar called “Resistance 101″ — weeks before the campus exploded in pro-Palestinian protests.
- Columbia students erected 60 tents on campus to demand that the university divest from Israel.
- More than 100 other protesters were arrested after Shafik announced the campus’s closure.
- Israel-born professor Shai Davidai was barred from campus after he attempted to lead a pro-Jewish rally.
- Every New York House GOP lawmaker demanded that Shafik resign immediately.
- Columbia University’s Jewish Alumni Association also called for Shafik’s resignation.
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.
Mohamed Abdou
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.”
Katherine Franke
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.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University:
- Columbia University anti-Israel protests live updates: Students facing suspension say ‘we won’t back down’
- NYPD ‘mobilizing’ for action at Columbia, but admin has not asked for cops yet
- Columbia anti-Israel protesters are defying order to disperse by 2 p.m.: Here’s what happens next
- House Democrats demand Columbia University trustees disband ‘tent camp’ or resign
“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.
Hamid Dabashi:
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.
Kayum Ahmed:
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.
The Post reached out to the above professors on Wednesday about their past remarks but didn’t hear back immediately.
