Columbia University suspends outspoken pro-Israel professor for harassment

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”.

Davidai has recently used his X account, which has more than 100,000 followers, to accuse prominent Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi of being a “spokesperson for Hamas”, and to share the name and email of another professor he suggested was “OK with rape, murder, torture and kidnapping”.

Students complaints

Davidai has also harassed and doxxed countless students, many of whom have denounced his abuse over the last year. Some of those students took to social media after Davidai’s suspension to criticise the university for belatedly taking action against him.

“I have been reporting him nonstop since October 2023 for many things including making video edits of me and only now that he absolutely lost his mind at Columbia administrators did they finally take action against him,” one student wrote on X on Wednesday.

“The Columbia business professor who has: targeted me for months, retweeted inappropriate comments about my body, and claimed I was part of Hamas as we evacuated my family from Gaza (we’re Palestinian Christians) is now banned from Columbia’s campus for harassment,” wrote another.

She added that Davidai had, among other things, made a video saying the US National Guard should be called in against student protesters and called campus security officers “members of Nazi Germany”.

Despite the many reports accusing him of harassment, it’s Davidai’s intimidation of Cas Holloway, the university’s chief operating officer, that appears to have crossed a line for the university’s administration.

‘Threatening behaviour’

“Columbia has consistently and continually respected Assistant Professor Davidai’s right to free speech and to express his views. His freedom of speech has not been limited and is not being limited now,” university spokesperson Millie Wert wrote in a statement to the Columbia Daily Spectator, the university’s student-run newspaper.

“Columbia, however, does not tolerate threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behavior by its employees”.

Davidai was restricted from entering campus but the suspension won’t impact his compensation or status as a faculty member, and the university offered him alternative office space off campus.

He will be allowed back on campus once he “undertakes appropriate training on our policies governing the behavior of our employees”, the spokesperson added.

Davidai was denied access to campus last spring after he announced that he planned to enter the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”, a protest camp set up by students, and called on his supporters to join him.

Last April, Columbia University suspended a student activist after video emerged in which the student said “Zionists don’t deserve to live”. Three university deans also resigned after exchanging texts during a meeting about anti-Semitism on campus that the university said “disturbingly touched on ancient anti-Semitic tropes”.

The university suspended another student and former Israeli soldier accused of spraying chemicals on pro-Palestine protesters. At the height of the protests last year, administrators twice called police to break up student demonstrations, leading to dozens of arrests.

Columbia University’s protest encampment inspired dozens of others on campuses across the US last year.

The university was widely criticised for its suppression of the protests, but also came under intense pressure from donors and legislators accusing it of supporting anti-Semitism on campus, leading to Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s resignation over the summer.