Columbia Professor who Spoke Out Against Antisemitism on Campus Now Under Investigation by Administration By Zach Kessel
Shai Davidai, an associate professor of business at Columbia University who has become a leading voice against antisemitism on college campuses, is the target of a university investigation that he believes is politically motivated, he told National Review Friday.
“I received a letter from the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action several weeks ago, first informing me that there is an investigation,” Davidai said. “Then, later, my legal counsel identified a few glaring holes and omissions in that letter, so they responded. When I received the more detailed letter with more specifics about what is being investigated, it became clear that the entire investigation is about my advocacy on social media.”
Davidai told NR that the university gave him a list of specific social-media posts on specific dates that prompted the investigation, all of which he said were about “student organizations that support Hamas and support the Houthis and that are using antisemitic chants in unauthorized protests.”
He first spoke publicly about the investigation in a Friday morning post on X, writing that it “is a clear act of retaliation and an attempt to silence” him. In the written statement he shared, Davidai wrote that “Jewish students at Columbia have been locking themselves in their dorm rooms to avoid being assaulted.” He continued:
They have been spat on, attacked, bullied, and vilified. Columbia has done nothing to stop pro-terror organizations that justify, excuse, and celebrate the massacre of my people, and chant for their eradication “by any means necessary” — as if violence against my four-year-old Israeli niece and my 93-year-old Israeli grandmother would be justified. As if Hamas terrorists raped my Israeli wife, it would be an act of resistance. As if Hamas terrorists shot my two-year-old daughter or my eight-year-old son in the head on our upcoming visit to Israel, it would be an excusable act by “freedom fighters” — an act worthy of celebration.
Davidai said he has never targeted “any individual Columbia student” and would never “target any person or group on the basis of their national origin, race, religion, or any other protected characteristic,” pointing to the myriad examples of statements he has made clarifying that he has no antipathy toward non-Hamas Palestinians and abhors prejudice against Arabs.
“The fact that the university has decided to pursue this investigation makes it clear that this is an attempt to silence me — the most vocal critic of the university’s abject failure to protect its Jewish and Israeli community members from pro-terror student organizations,” Davidai wrote.
He told NR that Columbia, in investigating him, is bending the knee to the protest groups supporting Hamas and subverting the purpose of institutional procedures.
“It’s clear to me that the university is caving in to public pressure from these pro-terror organizations and actors — including, I assume, several faculty — and it’s important to mention that all my advocacy has been focused on the university’s administration, from the president, vice presidents, provost, trustees, and downward. By investigating, the university is not an impartial judge or an impartial investigator; the most basic right of anyone being investigated is to be promised a fair process by an impartial investigative body and an impartial judge,” Davidai said. “Now, we have a university that’s the accuser, the judge, and the executioner, and they have a vested interest: They want to silence me. They want me out. I made this public statement because this reeks of Soviet silencing.”
Davidai also stressed the significance of the university investigating a critic of its handling of antisemitism in particular.
“We can’t ignore the fact that I am the most vocal Jewish voice on campus speaking in support of the Jewish community, but in addition to this being an issue of antisemitism, this is also an issue of free speech. A professor engaging in completely non-harmful and legal speech on his own social-media platforms — not in class, not in any official capacity, but his own social-media platform — has the university go after him.”
Davidai told NR that, while he plans to fully comply with the investigation, he has no plans to cease his advocacy for Jewish students, faculty, and staff at Columbia.
“In the last couple weeks, we have found out that Columbia’s Middle Eastern studies institute hired a professor who said that he identifies with Hamas, who called for armed rebellion in the United States. I will not be silenced, and I posted about that. We had an event on campus with a professor who was fired from Cooper Union who was arrested for threatening a journalist with a machete and posted antisemitic materials online, including a picture of Jews covered with cockroaches,” he said. “I won’t stop calling out the university for refusing to sanction the organizations that are supporting terrorism . . . regardless of whether my future is at Columbia or not, this is just unacceptable.”
Comments are closed.
