A “peace” college professor accused of teaching support for Hamas has been suspended from his post at an ultra-liberal school after allegations he ran a sex-for-grades scheme came to light.
Iranian national Mohammad Jafer Mahallati — who has called for the elimination of Israel and supported the assassination of Salman Rushdie — was quietly placed on indefinite administrative leave by Oberlin College, Ohio, and removed from its website last month after the administration learned he had previously been accused of sexual harassment.
The college is currently under investigation by the federal Department of Education after complaints that it abused the civil rights of Jewish students by allegedly allowing Mahallati to speak in favor of Hamas and giving credit for writing a large anti-Israel list.
Oberlin’s move to suspend Mahallati, 71, comes amid mounting anger over the college’s failure to grapple with antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis by the Hamas terrorist group.
The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania faced demands to resign from billionaire donors on Wednesday and criticism from the White House after telling Congress it “depends on the context” of whether students can claim the Holocaust.
Mohammad Jafer Mahallati, Oberlin’s “peace professor” has been suspended and deleted from his website after allegations that he traded sex for grades with one of his students while he was a Columbia assistant surfaced. Mohammad Jafer Mahallati styled himself a “professor of peace” but called for the elimination of Israel and supported Hamas while at Oberlin. Ali Mirshafi/TEDxTehran
Mahallati’s suspension came after court papers emerged from the 1990s that revealed that when he was an adjunct professor at Columbia University, he was accused of giving an 11-year-old graduate student his poor grades in return for sex.
Press releases provided to The Post by the Middle East Forum indicate that Columbia and Mahallati have both been sued by the woman, whom The Post has not named, accusing her of allegedly working to damage her reputation and academic future after she reported her allegations. sexual abuse to school authorities.
Mahallati denied the allegations in 1997 but did not respond to a request for comment from The Post. Columbia denied the allegations at the time.
The woman, then 32 and a Palestinian Christian, met Mahallati, a 43-year-old married father of one son, when she began a minor in Middle Eastern Studies in September, 1995, she alleged in court papers.
Mohammad Jafar Mahallati (left) was placed on “indefinite administrative leave” by Oberlin College authorities last month. BELGA/AFP via Getty Images
He claimed that by pretending to interview him as a potential research assistant, Mahallati invited the student to his home, “made repeated sexual advances” and promised good grades in exchange for sexual encounters, which allegedly took place in his office as well as hers. Manhattan apartment for 15 months.
Mahallati allegedly told the woman that he would withhold her grade if she did not remain silent. He claims that when he went to Columbia’s administration in April 1997, he accused him of submitting the same paper twice, which was definitely a fraud.
When he sued, court records show he tried to claim diplomatic immunity with a December 1, 1997, letter from Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations appointing him “‘Special Adviser on Political Affairs’ with full diplomatic and political privileges.”
He was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations between 1987 and 1989 and Columbia submitted a letter from the State Department to prove he was immune from prosecution 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 when he was UN ambassador to Iran in the late 1980s. Getty Images
Andrea Simakis, an Oberlin spokeswoman, told The Post she was placed on leave Nov. 28 and declined to comment further. It is not clear when the college became aware of the 1990s claim against Mahallati.
“We take all allegations of sexual harassment and abuse very seriously,” Simakis said. “We will not hire faculty members who we know have a history of sexually harassing students, colleagues or staff.”
At Oberlin, Mahallati became the subject of a federal investigation this fall when the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights revealed that it was investigating complaints that he taught students “support for Hamas and terrorism” as part of a larger investigation into 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 antisemitism.
Oberlin College stood behind Mahallati for years despite revelations that he had helped Iran cover up the killing of thousands of political prisoners. Alamy Stock Photo Students at Oberlin College were allegedly rewarded for posting an anti-Israel blog in Mahallati’s religion class in 2016. oberlinsfp/Facebook
He sent the department a document of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents between 2014 and 2017, including Mahallati telling his class in 2016 that “Israel is a colonial state” and an “apartheid state.”
Oberlin said in November that it “abhors antisemitism” and said of Mahallati: “Professor Mahallati has stated that he believes in the right of all people to live in peace and supports a two-state solution that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace.”
Separately, a group of Iranian anti-regime activists, some of whom have family members targeted by the Islamic Republic, have also complained about Mahallait, accusing him of being part of the smuggling massacre of 5,000 political prisoners in 1988 when he was Iran’s ambassador to the UN. .
It said in a statement: “This action is the result of tireless advocacy and clear exposure of Mahallati’s involvement in covering up human rights abuses and his antisemitic rhetoric.”
In addition to Columbia and Oberlin, Mahallati has also taught at Georgetown and Princeton.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
