Professor Shai Davidai, an Israel-born Columbia University professor who has been a vocal critic of the administration’s response to the ongoing anti-Israel student protests, said on Monday that he had been barred from campus after he tried to lead a pro-Jewish rally at the college, The New York Post reported.
Davidai said that when he swiped his key card at the school’s Morningside Heights campus, it read “deactivated.”
“They are not letting me on main campus,” he told a crowd of pro-Israel rallies at the school’s gate.
Davidai’s rejection from the campus of his own university prompted a crowd of pro-Israel protesters to shout, “Let him in!” and “Shame!”
Davidai noted the “irony” that his card still grants him access to the university’s Manhattanville campus farther uptown on West 130th Street, where he teaches at the business school.
“I was just told by [administrators] that I am [to be] let on the campus of the business school where I’m teaching tomorrow,” he said, adding, “So they are willing to use Jewish brains, but they don’t want to let Jewish people in.”
Last month, Davidai revealed that he is under investigation by the university and said the probe is a “clear act of retaliation and an attempt to silence me”.
In October, days after Hamas’ attack on Israel and the war in Gaza which followed, Davidai called Columbia President Minouche Shafik a “coward” in a fiery speech in which he criticized the president for failing to quiet “pro-terror” voices at the school.
The pro-Palestinian Arab protests at Columbia have intensified in recent days. On Thursday, more than 100 people were arrested by New York Police Department officers on a preliminary charge of criminal trespass, as police entered Columbia University to disperse a pro-Palestinian Arab protest that began a day earlier.
On Saturday night, the Chabad rabbi of Columbia University and a group of Jewish students were forced to leave the university campus for their own safety during a pro-Hamas demonstration.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Passover in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)