Foreign Relations

New York Judge Dismisses Discrimination Suit by Pro-Hamas Ex-Columbia Professor

Published

Courtroom-sketch editorial illustration of former Columbia University visiting professor Mohamed Abdou, a bearded man with short graying hair in a gray fleece jacket, speaking toward the camera in a head-and-shoulders video-interview frame before tall wooden panelled doors with a small slate-blue notice on the pale wall behind him, drawn in warm ochre and slate-blue chalk and pastel strokes with cross-hatching on sepia newsprint.

A New York County Supreme Court justice, Kathleen Waterman-Marshall, dismissed the discrimination and defamation suit brought by Mohamed Abdou, a former Columbia University visiting professor who wrote in October 2023 that he stood with the muqawamah, the resistance, be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Abdou sued Columbia, former president Minouche Shafik and professor Shai Davidai over Shafik's congressional testimony calling him an antisemite and what he called a hostile work environment. The court held that he provided no authority that expressing disapproval of a foreign terrorist organization in a congressional hearing amounts to discrimination, and found that Davidai criticized his attacks on Israel, not his identity. Abdou has filed an appeal.

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