Columbia President Reveals Anti-Semitic Prof’s Continued Presence in Encampment
Columbia University President Shafik confirmed the termination of an anti-Semitic professor, Mohamed Abdou, who was grading papers before being let go and is no longer teaching at Columbia. Abdou, known as a “Muslim anarchist,” has been actively involved in a student protest camp at the university, despite Shafik’s statements. Abdou’s controversial background and actions have raised questions and sparked debates.
Nearly two weeks ago, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik assured members of Congress that an anti-Semitic professor had been terminated. That professor, Mohamed Abdou, was “grading his students’ papers” before the end of the semester and would “never teach at Columbia again,” Shafik said.
Instead, Abdou—a self-described “Muslim anarchist” who teaches a class on “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition”—has been a regular presence in the unsanctioned “Gaza Solidarity” tent encampment that has plagued Columbia since student protesters constructed it on the day of Shafik’s testimony. The Washington Free Beacon has spotted him daily—talking to student leaders, lounging in the sun, and participating in demonstrations.
Saw Mohamed Abdou talking outside Columbia’s encampment (who you can see in the background to the left) so I decided to take a video of him.
I was then approached by a camper and told to stop filming for the sake of safety and privacy.@FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/TUPrbcgLAP
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 24, 2024
Columbia Professor Mohamed Abdou watching the protest from inside the gates pic.twitter.com/HrrYeQ09yM
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 25, 2024
Here’s another Abdou sighting from within the encampment on Friday pic.twitter.com/V1x8JjpiWX
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 28, 2024
Abdou’s status as an encampment regular reflects the protest’s radical nature. Before joining Columbia’s faculty, Abdou said he was “with Hamas” and “the resistance” during a January interview with Revolutionary Left Radio.
It also calls into question another aspect of Shafik’s testimony. Facing questions from members of the House Education Committee on Abdou’s pro-Hamas rhetoric, Shafik suggested the professor already had one foot out the door at Columbia.
“He will never work at Columbia again,” Shafik said. “He has been terminated, and not just terminated, but his files will show that he will never work at Columbia again.”
“He is grading his students’ papers and will never teach at Columbia again, and that will be on his permanent record.”
While the Free Beacon has not spotted Abdou grading papers in the encampment, he has served as a sort of faculty adviser for the unsanctioned protesters who have occupied Columbia’s West Lawn.
The role is a familiar one for Abdou. In February, roughly one month after he joined the Ivy League university, Abdou organized a protest in which Columbia students interrupted a panel featuring Hillary Clinton, with one demonstrator calling the former secretary of state a “war criminal” who “will burn.” On their way out, protesters broke into chants of “Free, free Palestine.”
“Really proud of these students & deeply honoured to have been a part of organising this,” Abdou wrote in a now-deleted social media post.
In other posts, Abdou has shared pictures from the encampment and frequently expressed his support for the “courageous students putting everything on the line & fighting for a just cause.”
In recent days, meanwhile, Abdou has refuted Shafik’s testimony regarding his termination, saying the president “lied on several counts.”
“I am not terminated,” he told the Electronic Intifada Podcast on April 24. “My contract is coming to an end.”
Neither Columbia University nor Abdou responded to requests for comment.
Abdou came under fire after the Free Beacon unearthed his pro-Hamas rhetoric in a Feb. 27 report.
Four days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, Abdou in a Facebook post said he was “with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.” He also lamented “false reports accusing Arabs and Muslims of decapitating the heads of children and being rapists.”
During his Jan. 5 interview with Revolutionary Left Radio, meanwhile, he declared his support for Hamas and “the resistance.” The terror group’s “dedicated few,” he said, worked in “stealth mode” on Oct. 7 to defeat a “larger enemy” in Israel.
“The warriors, the resistance fighters that were in Hamas, numbered less than 1,500 and look how they flipped the table—not only on an entire settler colonial state with no definable borders, but rather on the whole world,” he said during another interview on “Islam and Anarchism” he gave in November.
“You don’t need mass movements to change the world. You need a dedicated thousand, 1,500, a few thousand, that really are organized and know what it is that they’re doing, what they’re fighting for.”
Abdou repeated his praise for Hamas during a December “round table conversation” titled “Palestine 1492: Settler-Colonialism, Solidarity, & Resistance.”
“Look what 1,500 warriors were able to do, to whatever extent that we agree or disagree or partially accept, or whatever, Hamas or not,” he said. “But ultimately, I support the resistance.”
Shortly thereafter, on Jan. 16, Columbia’s Middle East Institute extended a “warm welcome” to Abdou, the Ivy League school’s latest visiting professor in Modern Arab Studies.
Abdou is not the only anti-Semitic Columbia professor to accuse Shafik of lying in her congressional testimony to Congress.
Shafik at one point said Joseph Massad—a Jordanian professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History—was under investigation and “spoken to” over an Oct. 8 op-ed that lauded Hamas’s attack as “incredible” and “awesome.” Shafik also suggested Massad was removed from his role as chair of the Columbia Arts and Sciences Academic Review Committee and pledged to pull him from the position if he was not already.
Hours later, Massad said he was not under investigation and remained chair of the committee, which conducts reviews of the school’s departments and guides “administrative decisions.” He also said Columbia administrators did speak to him about his op-ed—but that they offered him support.
“President Shafik misconstrued what happened,” he told the Electronic Intifada.
“I remain the chair of the Academic Review Committee, a one-year position, for the next few weeks, which is the normal end of my chairmanship. Indeed, I just had a meeting with the committee staff yesterday [16 April] and informed them that I will miss the next and final meeting on 8 May, due to my travel schedule.”
“No one has contacted me at all from the university with regards to my current chairmanship. I will also remain a member of the Academic Review Committee next year, which is a three-year appointment.”
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