Columbia University leaders banned Israeli-American business professor Shai Davidai from entering the area of campus where pro-Hamas protesters congregated and constructed a tent city, a Monday email obtained by National Review shows.
In an email to Davidai, Columbia chief operating officer Cas Holloway told the professor he had been barred from accessing the West Lawn, where protesters erected the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and have congregated since re-entering the area after New York Police Department officers cleared it out on Thursday.
“It is our standard operating procedure at any protest to establish a counterprotest area, which is where you will be required to hold your event (on the Math Lawn),” Holloway wrote. “To maintain the safety of the Columbia community, you are not permitted to enter the West Lawn. Because of the obvious risk to the safety of students and other members of our community, we strongly urge you to ask any students and colleagues who may have planned to join you to change their plans as well.”
Davidai advertised a “peaceful sit in at Columbia’s declared ‘Liberation Zone'”on X on Monday morning aimed at “paving a safe space for Jewish & Zionist students on campus & standing up against terrorism.”
“Obviously, the safety of our community has to be our top priority right now,” Holloway continued. “As a faculty member, you have a fiduciary duty to do everything in your power to help keep our students and campus safe.”
National Review obtained the email after reports that Columbia had deactivated Davidai’s ID card that allows faculty members access to the university’s main campus began circulating online.
“I have a right as a professor employed by the university to be on campus,” Davidai said to a crowd of demonstrators on Monday morning. “They deactivated my card.”
Davidai has been at the forefront of the movement against campus antisemitism since October 7 and has since found himself under a university investigation he described to National Review as politically motivated.
He told National Review he has never targeted “any individual Columbia student” and would never “target any person or group on the basis of their national origin, race, religion, or any other protected characteristic.”
He said he will “not stop calling out the university for refusing to sanction the organizations that are supporting terrorism” and told National Review that he thinks the investigation stems from students and faculty members who dislike his pro-Israel advocacy.
“It’s clear to me that the university is caving in to public pressure from these pro-terror organizations and actors — including, I assume, several faculty — and it’s important to mention that all my advocacy has been focused on the university’s administration, from the president, vice presidents, provost, trustees, and downward,” Davidai said. “By investigating, the university is not an impartial judge or an impartial investigator; the most basic right of anyone being investigated is to be promised a fair process by an impartial investigative body and an impartial judge.”