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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Professor who Columbia president said was ‘spoken to’ for calling
Hamas invasion ‘astounding’ says he wasn’t disciplined
By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
Updated:
2:19 PM EDT, Thu April 18, 2024
Source: CNN
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s Wednesday testimony
before a House committee on how the school responded to a professor’s
controversial piece labeling Hamas’ October 7 attack a “resistance
offensive” is at odds with the account the professor shared with CNN.
Multiple lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing on antisemitism at Columbia
took particular issue with the professor, Joseph Massad’s, use of the
word “awesome” in the piece describing scenes from the day of the
attack, though not the attack itself.
In the piece, Massad also said, “The sight of the Palestinian
resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from
Israel was astounding.”
Shafik told members of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce that she condemned the statements he made in the piece and
was “appalled” by them. A university spokesperson confirmed that
Massad was under investigation for allegedly making discriminatory
remarks, as Shafik noted in her Wednesday testimony. Massad told CNN
the investigation was “news” to him and he was not aware of it
prior to Wednesday.
When asked at the hearing if Massad, a tenured professor, faced any
disciplinary action, Shafik responded he had been “spoken to” by
the head of his department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African
Studies and his dean.
Shafik said she did not participate in those discussions but that
Massad was told the language he used in his piece “was
unacceptable.”
Massad told CNN no one said anything to him along those lines and he
had not been reprimanded in any way.
“I was shown solidarity by my chair and deans based on the death
threats that I received and the campaign targeting me,” he said in an
email to CNN.
CNN reached out to his department chair and to the Dean of the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences to confirm Massad’s statements.
The department chair did not respond, while the dean, Amy Hungerford,
referred the inquiry to a university spokesperson who did not offer any
comment.
“Both stories cannot be true,” Republican Rep. Tim Walberg, who
inquired at Wednesday’s hearing about any disciplinary actions
regarding Massad’s piece, said in an emailed statement to CNN on
Thursday.
“If Professor Massad’s department chair showed ‘solidarity’
following his comments, it undermines President Shafik’s testimony
and raises even more concerns about the antisemitic atmosphere amongst
faculty,” he added. “We must figure out who is telling the
truth.”
Initially, Shafik said Massad was no longer chair of the Academic
Review Committee at Columbia and that he “does not have a leadership
role.” But when Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik pointed out that
he’s still as the chair of the committee on a Columbia site, Shafik
said she “wasn’t sure.”
Massad told CNN he remains chair of the committee that oversees all
areas of Arts and Sciences, which covers five different schools within
Columbia, until his one-year term expires in a few weeks. “No one has
contacted me at all from the university with regards to my current
chairmanship,” he said, adding that he intends to remain a member of
the committee next year for a three-year term.
“Professor Massad has chaired his final meeting of the academic
review committee,” a different Columbia spokesperson told CNN. The
spokesperson did not respond when asked by CNN to clarify if that meant
he had been removed.
CNN reached out to other professors who were criticized during the
hearing, as well.
Mohamed Abdou, who Shafik said expressed support for Hamas on social
media following October 7, did not respond to a request for comment.
Columbia Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai, who Shafik
said was under investigation for harassment, told CNN that he has never
spoken against students by name, only “pro-Hamas” student
organizations and professors.
“They’re investigating me for the entire reason this hearing was
held in the first place. Columbia is investigating me for my social
media tweets and only my social media tweets,” he said.
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