Columbia University suspends outspoken pro-Israel professor for harassment
Al Jazeera
Shai Davidai was temporarily suspended after he ‘repeatedly harassed and intimidated’ university staff.
A divisive and outspoken pro-Israel professor at Columbia University in New York City was temporarily suspended after the prestigious school said he “repeatedly harassed and intimidated University employees in violation of University policy”.
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in the business school, has become a fixture on campus and on social media for his aggressive, pro-Israel advocacy and criticism of pro-Palestine students and faculty, whom he regularly accuses of supporting “terrorism”.
Davidai announced his temporary suspension on his Instagram account on Tuesday. In an expletive-laden video, he said “the university has decided to not allow me to be on campus anymore. My job. Why? Because of October 7. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob”.
He said he was suspended in retaliation for posting multiple videos online of his conversations with university public safety officials last October 7, during a protest by the pro-Palestine Columbia University Apartheid Divest student group. He suggested he would sue the university over the suspension and said that he was “not going anywhere”.
“I don’t care about my future”, he later wrote on X. “I care about what this acceptance of anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American terrorism means for the students on campus”.
