News | Student Life
Students petition UTS to hire professor who Shafik said ‘will never work at Columbia again’
At the April congressional hearing, Shafik was questioned about a post visiting professor Mohamed Abdou made shortly after Oct. 7, 2023.
By Judy Goldstein / Senior Staff PhotographerIn the spring 2024 semester, Abdou taught a class at Columbia called “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN.”By Rebecca Massel • July 16, 2024 at 2:57 AM
By Rebecca Massel • July 16, 2024 at 2:57 AM
Union Theological Seminary students put out a petition in late June urging the institution to hire Mohamed Abdou, the former Arcapita visiting assistant professor in modern Arab studies at Columbia who did not receive a letter of renewal for the 2024-25 academic year.
During University President Minouche Shafik’s April 17 congressional testimony, Abdou was one of several faculty members who Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) named during her questioning. Stefanik asked Shafik about Abdou’s position at the University after he posted on social media on Oct. 11, 2023, “I’m with Hamas & Hezbollah & Islamic Jihad.” Shafik responded, “He will never work at Columbia again.”
“Abdou’s targeting by the university is in keeping with the broader trend, whereby people of color, especially Muslims, Arabs, and those not afforded the protections of tenured employment are most vulnerable to the McCarthyist backlash against pro-Palestinian speech,” the petition reads.
The petition says that Abdou has been “blacklisted from academia, harassed, threatened, spat on, stalked, and unable to find secure and stable employment.” Abdou left the country after his position was not renewed, according to the petition, as he is not a citizen of the United States.
A University spokesperson declined to comment. A UTS spokesperson did not respond to request for comment. Abdou did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
At Columbia, Abdou taught a class called “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN” in the spring 2024 semester, a graduate-level course on “(neo)colonial/(neo)imperial Euro-American informed modernity,” according to the course description.
Before teaching at Columbia, Abdou served as the International Affiliate Scholar at The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University from 2023 to 2024 and published a book, “Islam and Anarchism: Relationships and Resonances,” in 2022, according to his resume. Abdou was the first professor to give a teach-in at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
Abdou said in a May 17 conversation with Black Power Media that his contract with Columbia was set to end on May 30.
The UTS administration provided workspace for students that Columbia suspended in the spring for their alleged participation in protest activity, as well as a location for suspended Jewish students to host a Passover seder, according to the petition. UTS President Serene Jones also wrote a letter to the UTS community in May “adamantly” condemning the police sweep of occupied Hamilton Hall.
In a separate letter following the April 18 police sweep of the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” Jones wrote that UTS administrators “have never and will never take the actions that occurred today.”
On May 9, the UTS board of trustees endorsed an institutional policy to support divestment from “companies substantially and intractably benefiting from the war in Palestine.”
“Although our investments in the war in Palestine are small because our previous, strong anti-armament screens are robust, we hope that our action today will bring needed pressure to bear to stop the killing and find a peaceful future for all,” the statement announcing the endorsement reads.
The UTS students’ petition cites the legacy of the institution, calling on it to uphold its previously expressed values when considering hiring Abdou.
“Dr. Abdou knows what it means to stand with those on the margins while violent institutional and state powers attempt to target and erase them,” the petition reads. “UTS must always hold the persistence, resistance, perseverance, and love that has driven the existence of this school, and we are calling on Union to once again live into those realities now.
Deputy News Editor Rebecca Massel can be contacted at rebecca.massel@columbiaspectator.com. Follow her on X @rebeccamassel.
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