Some Columbia University professors are being accused of advocating a pro-Palestinian bias during lectures, adding to campus tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Israel-Hamas conflict has caused many disturbances on college campuses in the U.S., including protests, accusations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, violence, and the deactivation of student-activist groups. And colleges and universities are struggling to handle the ongoing debate.
At Columbia, Kayum Ahmed, a professor and civil rights attorney, has been accused of radicalizing students.
"He puts the idea into everyone's head that the Jews stole the land and it should belong to the indigenous people," said Marc Nock, a graduate student who took the class.
Ahmed wrote in an email to the Journal that students who criticize his teaching "are a handful of privileged, white students, who have probably never been confronted by a framework that challenges them to think critically about the benefits they derived from the system of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism."
"I, on the other hand, am an untenured, Black, South African, Muslim man who spent the first 18 years of my life living under a system of apartheid. If anyone should feel 'unsafe and unwelcome' at Columbia, it should be me."
Other professors at Columbia have been accused of pro-Palestinian indoctrination.
A university official told the Journal it couldn't comment on personnel matters or specific course-content reviews, but it is "currently working with its educational committee and faculty to reiterate and reinforce its educational principles and requirements across the school."
Students are circulating lecture recordings they believe is indoctrination on email and group chats.
One professor last week said sexual assault by Hamas on Israeli women on Oct. 7 was a fabrication.
Jewish students have been attacked on campus since the war began, according to the Journal.
Yaffa Mashkabov, a graduate student in social work, told the news outlet Jewish students "are just scared now."
"People tuck in their Jewish stars because anyone who wears it, it's as if the star now is an emblem of a group of people that support genocide."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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