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Exclusive | How antisemitic professors — including Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s father — have ‘poisoned’ Columbia University

Nypost · 🇮🇷 public Iran · · 1860 words · By Elise Stefanik
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What to know about Exclusive

During the 2023-2024 House Education committee’s hearings on campus antisemitism in the wake of Hamas attacks on Israel, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) pressed the presidents of Columbia, Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania: Did calling for…

Claims checked 18
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center83%
Right17%

6 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

During the 2023-2024 House Education committee’s hearings on campus antisemitism in the wake of Hamas attacks on Israel, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) pressed the presidents of Columbia, Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania: Did calling for…

Why it matters

They were largely unable to answer with real clarity.

Common ground

Within months, three of the four presidents had resigned.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/04/09/world-news/how-antisemitic-professors-have-poisone…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 18 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 8
help Insufficient Evidence 7
verified Verified By Reference 3
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Claim 1: “During the 2023-2024 House Education committee’s hearings on campus antisemitism, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik pressed the presidents of Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their schools’ rules on bullying and harassment.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia entries about Elise Stefanik, Karoline Leavitt, and the list of US representatives do not mention the 2023-2024 House Education committee hearings or the specific questioning of university presidents regarding antisemitism policies.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Elise Marie Stefanik ( stə-FAH-nik; born July 2, 1984) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 21st congressional district since 2015. From 2021 to 2025, she…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elise_Stefanik
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Karoline Leavitt (born August 24, 1997) is an American political spokesperson who has served as the 36th White House press secretary since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, she was the party's n…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoline_Leavitt
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of individuals serving in the United States House of Representatives (as of February 2, 2026, the 119th Congress). The membership of the House comprises 435 seats for representatives fr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_…
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Claim 2: “The perpetrator of the October 8, 2023 assault was prosecuted for second-degree and third-degree assault.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the prosecution of individuals for the alleged assault.
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Claim 3: “Three of the four university presidents (Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania) resigned within months of the hearings.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia entries about Harvard University, Nancy Hopkins, and the Students for Fair Admissions case do not mention resignations of university presidents following the 2023-2024 hearings.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Harvard University was founded in 1636 in New Towne, a settlement itself founded six years earlier in colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original Thirteen Colonies. In 1638, New Towne w…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Nancy Hopkins, an American molecular biologist, (née Doe, born June 16, 1943) is the Amgen, Inc. Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of the National Acad…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Hopkins_(scientist)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that race-based affirmative action programs in most college admissions vi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v…
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Claim 4: “Immediately following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, American Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia faced vile slurs and threats to their physical safety.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia entries about the Gaza war, Hezbollah–Israel conflict, and the October 7 attacks describe the broader conflict but do not mention specific antisemitic incidents at Columbia University.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel, fought as part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflicts. The war began on 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian mi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — An ongoing conflict between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel began on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets and artillery at Israeli positions following Hamas's October 7 att…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah–Israel_conflict_(202…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The October 7 attacks were a series of coordinated armed incursions from the blockaded Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks
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Claim 5: “Columbia University did not condemn Joseph Massad’s antisemitic statements when questioned by the media.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the claim about specific individuals being questioned about antisemitism policies.
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Claim 6: “Mahmood Mamdani is a member of the Gaza Tribunal’s Advisory Policy Council, which includes Jeremy Corbyn and Ramy Abdu.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 7: “Joseph Massad, a professor at Columbia University, allegedly asked a student who served in the Israeli Defense Forces, 'How many Palestinians did you kill?' in the early 2000s.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the claim about Nancy Hopkins or any other individual being questioned about antisemitism policies.
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Claim 8: “Mahmood Mamdani authored the book 'Good Muslim, Bad Muslim' in 2004, which discusses suicide bombers and equates Hamas with Islamic martyrdom.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 9: “Hamid Dabashi claimed in 2018 that 'the Jewish people are the most dangerous people on earth' and that 'the Holocaust was a myth.'”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 10: “The 2005 committee investigating Joseph Massad included members with ties to antisemitism or anti-Israel activism, including Massad’s dissertation advisor and a university administrator accused of ignoring antisemitism complaints.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the claim about specific individuals being questioned about antisemitism policies.
help
Claim 11: “Joseph Massad referred to IDF soldiers as 'baby-killing Zionist Jewish volunteers for Israeli Jewish supremacy' and labeled Zionism a 'genocidal cult.'”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the claim about specific individuals being questioned about antisemitism policies.
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Claim 12: “Mahmood Mamdani claimed that Abraham Lincoln’s Native American policies inspired Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust policies.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 13: “Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s father, Mahmood Mamdani, is described as having shaped the mayor’s political ideology through antisemitic and anti-American indoctrination.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 14: “A former Columbia undergraduate assaulted an Israeli student with a stick while tearing down posters of Israeli hostages on October 8, 2023, and shouted, 'F–k you. F–k all you prick crackers.'”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the assault incident on October 8.
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Claim 15: “Hamid Dabashi, a Columbia professor, wrote in 2004 that 'the Jewish people are the most dangerous people on earth.'”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 16: “The Gaza Tribunal hosted a conference in Istanbul in late October 2025 featuring speakers with ties to designated terrorist organizations.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 17: “Joseph Massad published an online op-ed on October 8, 2023, celebrating Hamas’s 'resistance.'”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 18: “In 2005, Columbia University established a five-person committee to investigate Joseph Massad following student complaints.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results confirming the claim about specific individuals being questioned about antisemitism policies.
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.