Pro-Israel professor at Columbia barred from campus after harassing and intimidating other employees

NEW YORK (AP) — An outspoken pro-Israel professor at Columbia University has been temporarily barred from campus, a university spokesperson said Wednesday.

Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at the Manhattan university's business school, had his campus access restricted effective Tuesday after repeatedly harassing and intimidating other employees, according to university spokesperson Ben Chang.

Davidai, an Israeli citizen, has been among the most prominent campus critics of pro-Palestinian protests, saying that school officials have not done enough to crack down on the demonstrations, which he views as antisemitic.

He also helped lead pro-Israel counterprotests at Columbia last spring. On X, formerly Twitter, where he has more than 100,000 followers, he has accused pro-Palestinian student groups of supporting terrorism.

Chang said the university has “consistently and continually” respected Davidai’s right to express his views but that the restrictions were a “direct result” of his conduct on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, which sparked the region’s latest conflict.

“His freedom of speech has not been limited and is not being limited now,” he wrote in a statement. “Columbia, however, does not tolerate threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behavior by its employees.”

Davidai didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but said on X that the ban was in response to social media videos in which he confronted university officials during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus.

“He has now retaliated and had me suspended from campus,” Davidai wrote in his Tuesday post, referring to Cas Holloway, the university's chief operating officer. The post also linked to a video on Instagram that has since been taken down.

“I don’t care about my future. It’s never been about me. I care about @Columbia’s future," Davidai wrote in another post on X. "I care about what this acceptance of anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American terrorism means for the students on campus. ”

Chang stressed that Davidai, who is not teaching this semester, has not been suspended from his faculty post and that his compensation has not been affected by the disciplinary action.

But he will need to complete a training program on the university's policies governing employee conduct before having his campus access reinstated, he added.

“Education, training, access restrictions and other measures are available and used by the University when faculty and other employees violate University policy,” Chang said. “As in other cases, our expectation is that Assistant Professor Davidai will successfully complete the training and promptly return to campus.”