An Israeli-American professor, Shai Davidai, who has been outspoken in opposing Columbia University’s anti-Israel student protests, is being banned from campus for allegedly having “harassed and intimidated” fellow faculty members. 

Mr. Davidai, in a video posted on his Instagram account on Tuesday night, which has since been deleted, announced that his campus access has been temporarily suspended.

“The University has decided to not allow me to be on campus anymore. My job. Why? Because of Oct. 7. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob. And because I was not afraid to expose Mr. f****** Cas Holloway,” he said in the video. 

Mr. Davidai, who is an assistant professor at the business school, shared multiple videos on X of him confronting Columbia’s chief operating officer, Cas Holloway, and the assistant director of public safety, Bobby Lau, during an anti-Israel protest on the one year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre. 

Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace — staged a walkout on October 7 as part of Within Our Lifetime’s “call to flood NYC for Palestine.”  

In one of the videos Mr. Davidai can be heard saying to Mr. Holloway: “You are indifferent and you know what? Hatred happens when people like you are indifferent. You are the chief operating officer of Columbia. Do you realize that?”

His access to campus was cut off as of 3 p.m Tuesday. Mr. Davidai will be allowed back on campus once he “undertakes appropriate training on our policies governing the behavior of our employees,” a university spokeswoman, Millie Wert, told the Columbia Spectator.

“Columbia has consistently and continually respected Assistant Professor Davidai’s right to free speech and to express his views. His freedom of speech has not been limited and is not being limited now,” Ms. Wert told the student paper. “Columbia, however, does not tolerate threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behavior by its employees.”

Mr. Davidai, however, has said that he will complete the training if “Cas Holloway completes it with me,” he told the Spectator. “Innocent people don’t get punished, not in a democracy, and I refuse to take a punishment for something that I’m innocent for.” 

His suspension does not affect his compensation or standing as a member of Columbia’s faculty. Mr. Davidai, who is conducting research but not teaching classes this semester, will still be able to advise students remotely.