A Columbia University professor who previously justified Hamas’s terrorist actions has recently left the Ivy League school after the university administration found her guilty of discrimination against Israeli students.
Katherine Franke, formerly a Columbia Law professor who specialized in “Gender and Sexuality Law” and “Racial Justice,” left the school on Friday following a controversy that started when she said Israeli students at Columbia who have finished their military service have “been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus” during a January, 2024 interview with Democracy Now.
Franke also falsely accused Israeli students of attacking anti-Israel activists on campus with skunk water.
Following her statements, two other Columbia law professors initiated a formal complaint stating that Franke “harassed members of the Columbia community based on their national origin.”
Columbia University eventually found that Franke’s comments had “violated university non-discrimination policy,” according to a statement Franke published the day of her stepping down.
Franke claimed that “[w]hile the university may call this change in my status ‘retirement,’ it should be more accurately understood as a termination dressed up in more palatable terms,” and bashed the Ivy League school for supposedly creating “created such a toxic and hostile environment for legitimate debate around the war in Israel and Palestine that I can no longer teach or conduct research.”
She also accused Columbia University of supposedly caving to “a right-wing, and pro-Israel, ideology,” and expressed her commitment to “refocus my efforts on fighting for the rights and dignity of Palestinians.”
[RELATED: Democrat congressman calls out ‘Intifada idiocy’ at Columbia]
In October, 2023, following the Oct. 7 massacre of Jewish civilians, Franke shared a letter written by herself and other colleagues, in which she justified Hamas’s terrorist actions.
“One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation,” the letter stated.
Columbia University has also repeatedly come under criticism for the actions of other anti-Israel professors, including Joseph Massad, who glorified the Oct. 7 massacre the day after it occurred and seemed to rejoice in the plight suffered by Jewish civilians.
Campus Reform has contacted Franke and Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
Author
