Columbia University has assembled a committee to review its Middle East programs, a requirement stipulated by the Trump administration.
However, the committee's composition has sparked controversy due to the inclusion of faculty members known for their anti-Israel sentiments. These members have previously defended infamous anti-Semites and justified the October 7 massacre by Hamas.
Among the committee members are Bruno Bosteels and Timothy Mitchell, both of whom endorsed a letter suggesting that the October 7 incident was merely an act of resistance by an occupied people. Lisa Anderson, another member, has previously invited Palestinian terror financiers, including former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, to the campus.
Karuna Mantena, another panelist, has advocated for an anti-Zionist professor who dismissed Hamas's atrocities as fabrications. Rhiannon Stephens, a fifth member, employs an anti-Israel radical who advocates violence.
However, two members of the committee have publicly expressed support for Israel.
As reported by The Washington Free Beacon, this seven-member committee was established to guide senior vice provost Miguel Urquiola in his review of Columbia's regional programs, starting with the Middle East. This area has been a contentious point within the university since the October 7 incident, with critics attributing the rise in anti-Semitism to the faculty members.
The review is a condition of Columbia's agreement with the Trump administration to reinstate over $400 million in federal funding. However, the committee's anti-Israel composition could reignite controversy.
Bosteels, the dean of humanities and a scholar of communism, and Mitchell, a professor specializing in colonialism, signed an open letter on October 30, 2023. The letter argued that student groups justifying Hamas's attack were merely attempting to "recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023."
The letter stated, "One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation."
Other signatories of this letter include Columbia's Rashid Khalidi, who attributed Hamas's October 7 attack to Israeli "settler colonialism," and Joseph Massad, who praised the terror attack as "awesome."
Mitchell's endorsement of this view is unsurprising, given his previous writings. In a 2003 article, he co-wrote that the Second Intifada, which resulted in the deaths of over a thousand Israelis, briefly highlighted the consequences of Israel's continued occupation and expanded colonization of the West Bank and Gaza.
Between 2014 and 2023, Mitchell signed four letters demanding Columbia divest from Israel.
Anderson, the dean emerita of the School of International and Public Affairs, has a lengthy record of defending anti-Semites. During her tenure as dean, Anderson invited Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who advocated for Israel's eradication, to speak at Columbia, although this plan ultimately fell through.
She did, however, manage to bring Qaddafi to campus to discuss how "democracy is going to be understood in Libya, in the United States, in the world." The Qaddafi regime, notorious for its human rights violations, financed several Palestinian terror groups, including the Black September Organization, responsible for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic games.
Urquiola's committee bears similarities to another panel Anderson was part of two decades ago. That group reviewed over 60 anti-Semitism complaints filed against professors in the Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Department, but found only threetwo of which were filed against Massadparticularly concerning, and determined there was no pervasive anti-Semitism.
Critics accused the committee of bias, arguing that its members held anti-Israel views. Anderson, in fact, faced criticism from Israel supporters for accepting a Saudi Arabia-funded trip to the kingdom in 2004. She also served as Massad's dissertation adviser several years earlier.
When the investigation was announced, she signed a letter sent to then-Columbia president Lee Bollinger defending Massad against a "campaign of defamation" and said complaints filed against anti-Israel professors marked "the latest salvo against academic freedom."
Massad was never punishedand was tenured four years later.
Mantena, a political science professor and another member of Urquiola's review committee, signed a petition urging then-secretary of state Antony Blinken to provide protections for Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, an anti-Israel Palestinian professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian was suspended and later arrested and detained by Israeli police on suspicion of incitement for accusing Zionists of lying about Hamas's atrocities, including rapes, while justifying the need to abolish Zionism in March 2024.
Mantena also teaches the course "Anticolonial and Postcolonial Political Thought," which involves "reading key anticolonial texts" and examining views "sharply critical of the complicity of Western political thought and modern practices of imperialism, slavery, and global inequality."
Stephens, another panelist reviewing Columbia's Middle East programs, is the co-director of the Center for Science and Society. The center is home to Hadeel Assali, an "environmental justice" lecturer who called Charlie Kirk a "dead nazi" soon after his murder and endorsed Palestinian "resistance in ALL its forms" shortly after the October 7 terror attack.
It also employs Rebecca Jordan-Young, who served as a "protest marshal" to help secure the perimeter of an illegal encampment in April 2024. The following September, Jordan-Young donned a curly pink wig and clown makeup as part of a protest.
A university spokesman defended the inclusion of the anti-Israel professors, noting the review committee "represents a wide range of perspectives and experiences, including members who have served on the University's Antisemitism Task Force and signed petitions against BDS."
"It is inaccurate to suggest that any subset of committee members determine the views of the committee," he said. "In fact, the committee members work strictly in an advisory capacity to the Senior Vice Provost. Recommendations will be made by the committee acting as a group and are not binding."
Two committee members, Alex Raskolnikov, a tax law professor, and Clmence Boulouque, an associate professor of Jewish and Israel studies and member of Columbia's anti-Semitism task force, have defended Israel. They signed a letter defending Columbia's ties to Israel, stating, "Columbia benefits from ties with Israeli faculty, students, research, and technology.
To treat Zionism as an illegitimate and fundamentally oppressive movement is to ignore history and to deny Jews a measure of empathy and respect."
Boulouque told the Washington Free Beacon that the committee members' wide array of viewpoints and expertise is "deeply important in striking a balance of perspectives and lending more objectivity to our work."
"No one committee member is dominant in this regard and our recommendations to the Senior Vice Provost will reflect that," she added.
Urquiola, meanwhile, has kept a low profile. He, Anderson, Stephens, Mitchell, and Bosteels did not respond to requests for comment, while Raskolnikov declined to comment. Mantena said she was traveling and could not respond by press time.
The controversy surrounding the committee's composition underscores the ongoing tension between academic freedom and the need to maintain an environment free from bias and discrimination. As the review process unfolds, the university will need to navigate these complexities, ensuring that the committee's recommendations reflect a balanced and fair perspective.
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