A “peace” university professor accused of teaching support for Hamas has been suspended from his permanent position at an ultra-liberal school after allegations came to light that he once ran a sex-for-grades scheme.
Iranian national Mohammad Jafer Mahallati, who called for Israel’s elimination and endorsed the murderous fatwa against Salman Rushdie, was quietly placed on indefinite administrative leave by Oberlin College, Ohio, and removed from its website last month after the administration learned that he had previously accused of sexual harassment.
The university is currently under investigation by the federal Department of Education after a complaint that it abused the civil rights of Jewish students by allegedly allowing Mahallati to speak in favor of Hamas and giving him credit for writing anti-Israel articles.
Oberlin’s decision to suspend Mahallati, 71, comes amid growing fury over universities’ failure to combat anti-Semitism following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis. Hamas.
The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday faced demands to resign from a billionaire donor and criticism from the White House after telling Congress that “it depends on the context” as to whether students could demand the genocide of Jews.
Mohammad Jafer Mahallati, Oberlin’s “peace professor,” has been suspended and removed from his website after allegations surfaced that he traded sex for grades with one of his students when he was an adjunct at Columbia. Mohammad Jafer Mahallati called himself a “professor of peace,” but called for the elimination of Israel and supported Hamas while he was in Oberlin. Ali Mirshafi/TEDxTehran
Mahallati’s suspension came after court documents from the 1990s emerged revealing that when he was an adjunct professor at Columbia University, he had been accused of giving a graduate student 11 years of his good grades in exchange for sex.
The documents, provided to the Post by the Middle East Forum, showed that Columbia and Mahallati had been sued by the woman, whom the Post is not naming, accusing him of allegedly working to damage her reputation and academic future after she reported on his alleged sexual abuse to school authorities.
Mahallati had denied the allegations in 1997, but did not respond to a Post request for comment. Columbia denied the allegations at the time.
The woman, then 32 and a Palestinian Christian, met Mahallati, a 43-year-old married father of a young son, when she began studying Middle Eastern Studies in September 1995, she alleged in court papers.
Mohammad Jafar Mahallati (left) was placed on “indefinite administrative leave” by Oberlin College officials last month. BELGA/AFP via Getty Images
She alleged that under the pretext of interviewing her as a potential research assistant, Mahallati invited the student to her home, “made repeated sexual advances” and promised her good grades in exchange for sexual encounters, which allegedly took place in both her office and her home. home. Apartment in Manhattan for 15 months.
Mahallati allegedly told the woman he would withhold her grade if she did not remain silent. She alleged that when she went to the Columbia administration in April 1997 he accused her of submitting the same document twice, which would have been fraudulent.
When she filed the lawsuit, court records show that he attempted to claim diplomatic immunity with a December 1, 1997 letter from Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations appointing him “‘Special Adviser on Political Affairs’ with full diplomatic and political privileges.” “.
He had been Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989, and Columbia submitted a letter from the State Department to show that he was not immune from being sued for what he was accused of doing after 1989. The case was settled in 1998.
Mahallati called for the death of British author Salman Rushdie while he was UN ambassador to Iran in the late 1980s. Getty Images
Oberlin spokeswoman Andrea Simakis told The Post he was suspended Nov. 28 and declined to comment further. It is unclear exactly when the university learned of the 1990s allegations against Mahallati.
“We take all allegations of sexual harassment and abuse very seriously,” Simakis said. “We would not hire a faculty member who we knew had a history of sexually harassing a student, colleague, or staff member.”
At Oberlin, Mahallati became the subject of a federal investigation this fall when the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights revealed that it was investigating a complaint that he had taught students “support for Hamas and terrorism” as part of an investigation broader discussion of anti-Semitism. on the Oberlin campus.
The investigation, which opened on September 29, was prompted by a complaint filed in 2019 by Oberlin College graduate Melissa Landa. Landa, who graduated from Oberlin in 1986, is president of the Oberlin Chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness, a nonprofit organization that works to end anti-Semitism.
Oberlin College supported Mahallati for years despite revelations that he had helped Iran cover up the murder of thousands of political prisoners. Alamy Stock Photo Oberlin College students were allegedly rewarded for posting anti-Israel blogs in Mahallati’s religion class in 2016. oberlinsfp/Facebook
He sent the department a dossier of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents between 2014 and 2017, including Mahallati telling his classes in 2016 that “Israel is a colonialist state” and “an apartheid state.”
Oberlin said in November that he “abhors anti-Semitism” and said of Mahallati: “Professor Mahallati has stated that he believes in the right of all peoples to exist in peace and supports a two-state solution that would allow the people of Israel and Palestine coexist peacefully.”
Separately, a group of Iranian anti-regime activists, some of whom had relatives persecuted by the Islamic Republic, had also complained about Mahallait, accusing him of being part of a cover-up of a mass murder of 5,000 political prisoners in 1988. .when he was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
He said in a statement: “This action comes as a result of tireless advocacy and stark revelations about Mahallati’s involvement in the cover-up of human rights abuses and his anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
In addition to Columbia and Oberlin, Mahallati has also taught at Georgetown and Princeton.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn