American Tax Money Fuels Radicalism at Columbia University

NEW YORK CITY, NY – A federal grant program bankrolled by the Department of Education wound up sending millions to Columbia University over the years, which these grants meant to conjure future-diplomats in reality helped fuel radical ideologues teaching the next generation at Columbia, including controversial mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s father, Mahmood Mamdani.

It's difficult to point out a greater irony than American tax dollars funding anti-American ideologies, but that seems to be the case with the DOE’s National Resource Centers (NCR) and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS) as it relates to funding over at Columbia University. According to a report from the Daily Wire, Columbia University’s Middle East Institute applied for NCR FLAS money due to their employment of professors like Mamdani, whose research interests range from “racial capitalism” to “colonialism.”

In a June 2018 grant application from the school, Columbia University asserted they deserved taxpayer money since the funding “specifically trains” the next generation for prominent roles in the government, like Homeland Security and filling congressional seats.

“[T]he School of International and Public Affairs… specifically trains students for employment in positions in the government (State, Defense, Homeland Security, Intelligence agencies, and Congressional Offices),” the document reads, continuing with, “SIPA offers over 24 courses annually relating to cybersecurity, training students who will work in the government, at financial institutions, tech companies, and internationally.”

The university sought over $1 million in order to compensate the professors and cover various administrative costs at the Middle East Unit, in addition to asking for another $1.6 million for student-related expenses under the FLAS fellowship. Between 2018 and 2024, the entirety of Columbia University garnered close to $12 million in grants under NCR FLAS, with a third of said grant money funneling directly to the Middle East Unit during that time.

News of these sorts of grants inadvertently funding radical ideologies at Columbia University comes at a time when the university recently settled with the federal government over the handling of anti-Israel protests in recent years. In a July 25th press release from the EEOC, Columbia University agreed to settle a $200 million lawsuit with the federal government for $21 million, with said lawsuit stemming from allegations of Title VII violations linked to antisemitism.

While Columbia University was raking in tax dollars to fund professors like Mamdani, he was tweeting out the very kind of rhetoric that would eventually land the university in hot water in light of the settlement reached with the government.

In May of 2021, Mamdani took to Twitter with, “The resistance this time began in Jerusalem and spread to Gaza, now the West Bank and Palestinian communities beyond. This is not a conflict between Israel and Hamas. We are witnessing something far more meaningful, the birth of the Third Intifadah against settler colonialism!” For the sake of context, “intifadah” is Arabic for “uprising,” which this particular slogan happens to be a favorite when referring to terrorist acts of violence launched by Palestine against Israel.

Furthermore, in Mamdani’s book “Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities,” he asserted that the establishment of the state of Israel was essentially a form of “extreme political violence undertaken to create ethnically homogeneous states.” The elder Mamdani also happens to hold a seat in a council at direct odds with American foreign policy, being one of the 29 members of the Gaza Tribunal’s advisory policy council which boasts an effort “to awaken civil society to its responsibility and opportunity to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” as its primary objective.

John Hart, the CEO of OpenTheBooks which helped bring this taxpayer-funded scandal to light, noted in a statement that while Mamdani is entitled to his “free speech rights,” that doesn’t mean he’s entitled to use American tax dollars to push his ideology.

“Professor Mamdani’s embrace of faddish, faculty lounge DEI theories on ‘decolonialism’ illustrates why the Department of Education needs to be eliminated or dramatically downsized,” Hart stated, adding, “I support Professor Mamdani’s free speech rights, and the rights of his son to call for ‘seizing the means of production,’ but that does not mean either are entitled to advance their radical views with taxpayer subsidies.”