Columbia website features off-campus course claiming 'genocide' by US, Israel
Columbia University's website is hosting a page advertising a Rashid Khalidi class that accuses the U.S. and Israel of committing 'genocide' in Gaza, though the school says it is not an official university course.
The course description also claims Israel’s policies amount to 'apartheid' and that Columbia is complicit in covering up genocide.
A web page on Columbia University’s website is advertising a class outside the university curriculum that accuses the United States and Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
The event listing promotes “A Short Course on Palestine” taught by Columbia historian Rashid Khalidi. While the university notes the course is not offered for academic credit, the university-hosted page describes the class in overtly political terms.
The class describes itself online as starting “from the premise that this is not a ‘conflict’ between two equally matched parties, or that it started with the wars of 1948 or 1967.”
“Rather, these episodes are part of a systematic, if intermittent, war that has lasted for over a century, aimed at dispossessing the Palestinian people and transforming their homeland into an exclusive Jewish national home,” the page continues.
Originally scheduled for Columbia’s campus in fall 2025, the course was moved to The People’s Forum in Manhattan and is co-sponsored by the Institute for Palestine Studies.
The description of the class further argues that “since then, the offspring of this movement, the state of Israel, has enjoyed the uninterrupted backing of major global powers, most importantly the United States.”
Sessions for the course will run from Sept. 30 through Oct. 28, with revenue directed to universities in Gaza.
“This is not a Columbia University activity, and the University does not provide funding for, does not approve or endorse, or have oversight over its contents,” a Columbia University spokesperson told Campus Reform, despite advertising the class on the official website of the Center for Palestine Studies.
Campus Reform reported in August that Khalidi announced he would not teach this fall, denouncing the school’s deal with the Trump administration.
According to the class’s event description “as Columbia continues its complicity in covering up the U.S.-Israeli genocide against Palestine and capitulates to the Trump administration at the expense of academic freedom and student rights, Professor Rashid Khalidi found it impossible to teach his course.”
In an open letter, he accused Columbia of “capitulating” to pro-Israel forces, condemned anti-Semitism training from groups like the ADL, and called Israel’s policies “apartheid.”
Khalidi charged the university with covering up “the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US.”
In a survey earlier this year, most Jewish students at Columbia reported experiencing religious discrimination, with 62 percent saying they did not feel accepted for their faith and only 34 percent expressing a sense of belonging.
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
