(12-12-23) Iranian citizen Mohammad Jafer Mahallati (71), who has called for the elimination of Israel and backed the murderous fatwa against Salman Rushdie, was put on indefinite administrative leave by Ohio’s Oberlin College and removed from its website last month after the administration learned he had previously been accused of sexual harassment.

Oberlin is being investigated by the federal Department of Education after a complaint that it abused the civil rights of Jewish students by allegedly letting Mahallati speak in favor of Hamas and give credit for writing anti-Israel screeds, as part of a larger probe into anti-Semitism on Oberlin’s campus.

Oberlin College “Suspends” Prof. Mahallati: Background and Implications

Middle East Forum – You Tube Video

The move by Oberlin to suspend Mahallati, 71, comes amid mounting fury at colleges’ failure to grapple with antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis by terrorist group Hamas.

Mahallati was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations between 1987 and 1989, has also taught at Columbia, Georgetown and Princeton. Mahallati has taught at Oberlin College since 2007 and is the Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies at Oberlin College.

Oberlin College has faced other issues in the past several years-

In July of 2022…Oberlin College is facing $4 million in interest charges after refusing to pay $33 million in court-ordered defamation damages to Gibson’s Bakery that it had slandered as racist.

On the Oberlin College website –

Our Mission and History

From its founding in 1833, Oberlin College has been a school with a mission, or rather, many missions. Beginning with abolition and coeducation, and most recently addressing the challenges of climate change, Oberlin has always been—to quote historian Geoffrey Blodgett ’53—a “peculiar mix of scholarly ambition and stubborn moral idealism.”