Pro-Israel professor Shai Davidai leaves Columbia University after 'mutual agreement'
An assistant professor who was accused of harassing pro-Palestinian students as well as staff at Columbia University has left the institution following a "mutual agreement" that he will not return to teaching at the Ivy League school, according to an official there.
Shai Davidai, a controversial pro-Israel advocate who taught at Columbia’s business school, left the university on 8 July. His campus access had been restricted since October following the “intimidation” of university employees.
“Assistant Professor of Business Shai Davidai has decided to depart Columbia, effective July 8, 2025,” a Columbia University spokesperson wrote in an email to Middle East Eye, adding: "Assistant Professor Davidai has chosen, by mutual agreement with the University, to not return to teaching at Columbia."
“The University thanks him for his service and wishes him the best in his future endeavors.”
Davidai said in a post on X on Friday that he left the university because he did not trust “the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-American hate festering on [Columbia's] campus”.
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“I didn’t leave Columbia to “pursue other endeavors”, he said. “I left because I no longer trust its so-called leadership to confront the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-American hate festering on campus. During my six years there, I met plenty of well-paid bureaucrats - but not once did I meet a true leader.”
Davidai has been a vocal critic of Columbia and other universities for their response to pro-Palestinian protest encampments on US campuses against the war in Gaza, while also being accused of threatening behaviour to students and faculty at the institution.
Davidai had been under investigation by Columbia's Office of Institutional Equality (OIE) into allegations of harassment made against him in February 2024.
Davidai shared in a post on X on Thursday that Columbia had “tried to smear” his name and that he “wouldn’t let them”, sharing a letter from Laura Kirschstein, vice-provost at OIE, saying: “On July 8, OIE closed its investigations relating to you without issuing any findings or conclusions of wrongdoing, and without imposing any discipline or penalty on you.”
A university official said that any OIE investigations normally terminate when an individual "is no longer employed at the University" and consequently the investigation into Davidai had closed “without issuing any findings or conclusions of wrongdoing”.
Katherine Franke, a former law professor who had taught at Columbia University, shared on Instagram on Thursday a video of her showing a letter from OIE sent to students who had made allegations against Davidai, which said that the “OIE process has been terminated without any determination”, meaning that Davidai had not been absolved of wrongdoing, just that a determination wasn’t made before he had left.
Columbia University has been criticised for capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands over its allegations of antisemitism.
Access denied
In October, Columbia University issued a statement regarding Davidai’s access to the institution being restricted, saying, “Columbia…does not tolerate threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behaviour by its employees”.
The university also said it had "temporarily limited his access to campus while he [Davidai] undertakes appropriate training on our policies governing the behavior of our employees".
After he was barred, he took to Instagram to criticise the decision, saying that it was “because of October 7th [2023]. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob. And because I was not afraid to expose Mr fucking Cas Holloway”.
Holloway is the chief operating officer at Columbia. That video has since been taken down, but Davidai shared many social media posts harassing Holloway.
It was the second time the non-tenured Israeli professor had been barred from the campus in a year. He had also been barred on 22 April for around a month for threatening to do a pro-Israeli sit-in on a pro-Palestinian encampment.
Harassment
Davidai in April 2024 called pro-Palestine students "the Hitler Youth" on X (his post has subsequently been taken down) and used his social media accounts, where he has over 108,000 followers, to repeatedly call for the US National Guard to be brought into the protest encampment at Columbia.
More than 13,000 students signed a petition asking for him to be fired because he used his “personal social media accounts to target, harass, and bully students, including Palestinian students who have lost family members in Gaza”.
As well as students accusing him of harassing them both in person and on social media, critics said he also endangered staff, students and faculty.
For example, he called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a post on X for Columbia graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil to be deported from the US. This happened two days before he was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dressed in plain clothes. Khalil was subsequently freed on 8 March after 104 days at a detention centre in Jena, Louisiana.
In another incident, he tagged former faculty member Mohamed Abdou in posts with the FBI and Homeland Security. Abdou subsequently discovered he was "terminated" from a faculty position while watching on CSPAN, Columbia's antisemitism congressional hearing in April 2024.
Abdou said his “doxxing" and “termination” was "irreparable”.
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