Professor who Columbia president said was ‘spoken to’ for calling Hamas invasion ‘astounding’ says he wasn’t disciplined

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s Wednesday testimony before a House committee on how the school responded to a professor’s controversial piece labeling Hamas’ October 7 attack a “resistance offensive” is at odds with the account the professor shared with CNN.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s Wednesday testimony before a House committee on how the school responded to a professor’s controversial piece labeling Hamas’ October 7 attack a “resistance offensive” is at odds with the account the professor shared with CNN. Multiple lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing on antisemitism at Columbia took particular issue with the professor, Joseph Massad’s, use of the word “awesome” in the piece describing scenes from the day of the attack, though not the attack itself. In the piece, Massad also said, “The sight of the Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from Israel was astounding.” Shafik told members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that she condemned the statements he made in the piece and was “appalled” by them. A university spokesperson confirmed that Massad was under investigation for allegedly making discriminatory remarks, as Shafik noted in her Wednesday testimony. Massad told CNN the investigation was “news” to him and he was not aware of it prior to Wednesday. When asked at the hearing if Massad, a tenured professor, faced any disciplinary action, Shafik responded he had been “spoken to” by the head of his department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and his dean. Shafik said she did not participate in those discussions but that Massad was told the language he used in his piece “was unacceptable.”