Columbia University is drawing backlash for its decision to bestow its highest faculty honor on a professor of comparative literature and African American studies who has advocated for boycotting Israel and pitched her support behind Columbia’s anti-Israel student groups. 

On Monday, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, named Farah Jasmine Griffin a “University Professor” — the highest academic distinction Columbia confers on its own faculty — in recognition of her “influence” and “contributions to Columbia’s intellectual life.”

Ms. Shipman praised Ms. Griffin as a “beloved professor and mentor” who has “played a pivotal role in shaping the direction and elevating the stature” of the university’s African American studies department — which Ms. Shipman described as “one of the University’s most distinguished and dynamic intellectual communities.” 

According to Columbia’s faculty handbook, only eight professors are permitted to hold the title at a time and the chosen few represent a cohort of “exceptional scholars with the highest distinction who have served the University extensively.” Candidates are nominated by Columbia’s president on the recommendation of the provost and other university leaders and are voted on by the trustees. 

Members of Columbia’s Jewish community, however, were less than enthusiastic about the appointment. “@ClaireShipman, Did you do any homework on Professor Jasmine Farah Griffin before appointing to be University Professorship?” an antisemitism watchdog group, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus, wrote. 

Ms. Griffin, the group notes, has long supported the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, sanctions movement and signed a petition in favor of severing all of Columbia’s financial ties to “institutions associated with the State of Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian lands, continued violations of Palestinian human rights, systematic destruction of life and property, inhumane segregation and systemic forms of discrimination.” 

The signatories also pitched their support behind Columbia’s anti-Israel student groups, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace, and demanded that the university divest from corporations that do business with Israel. 

Ms. Griffin has also come to the defense of an American professor, Steven Salaita, whose position at the University of Illinois was revoked in 2013 after his antisemitic posts on social media resurfaced. In one post on X, Mr. Salaita proclaimed that anyone defending Israel is an “awful human being.” In another, he shared his “wish” that “all the f—ing West Bank settlers would go missing.” 

Ms. Griffin joined several hundred other university professors in condemning the University of Illinois for being “racist” and supporting “human rights violations against Palestinians,” and pledged not to give guest lectures or provide public speeches at the university until Mr. Salaita’s position was reinstated. 

The watchdog group further accused Ms. Griffin of serving as a faculty guard for the anti-Israel encampment that roiled Columbia’s campus in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. 

In light of Ms. Griffin’s anti-Israel stance, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus chided Columbia for taking “numerous steps back with this appointment,” and called on the House’s Education and Workforce Committee to launch an investigation into “Professor Griffin and her appointment.” 

A consortium of Jewish faculty at Columbia voiced similar concerns over Columbia’s decision to honor a scholar who “supports boycotts against Israel, which is against academic freedom and international academic collaboration.” 

Although it noted that Ms. Griffin is indeed an “esteemed scholar,” the group questioned why Columbia chose to appoint her over the “many wonderful faculty who could be honored, who are not actively making Columbia a hostile and discriminatory environment.”  

An American-Israeli professor at Columbia, Shai Davidai, who has been outspoken in condemning antisemitism at the New York City Ivy, chided the university for doling out the highest academic distinction to a professor “who openly supported the pro-Hamas organization on campus.” In a separate post he mused: “It’s almost as if @Columbia’s administrators don’t know how to use Google.” 

A Jewish undergraduate student at Columbia, Elisha Baker, responded to the appointment by stating, “I’m all for viewpoint diversity,” before arguing that Columbia “should reward faculty whose contributions don’t come with antisemitism, discrimination, or disruption.” He added, “Poor decisions like this stand in the way of the positive culture change we need.”

The appointment comes just a month after the federal government reported that Columbia was violating federal civil rights laws by showing “deliberate indifference to the hostile environment faced by its Jewish students.”  

The university is in talks with the White House to reinstate $400 million in federal funding that was frozen by the administration due to Columbia’s mishandling of antisemitism on campus. 

Ms. Griffin has not yet responded to the Sun’s request for comment.