Aaron Sibarium writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a disturbing development at Columbia University.
A Columbia University graduate student who praised Hamas for its “inspirational” tactics and appeared on a panel with members of a designated terrorist group has been elected to the university’s main policymaking body.
Sean Eren, a master’s student at Columbia’s graduate school of architecture and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) national steering committee, was banned from campus in March 2024 after he spoke at an unsanctioned event with Samidoun, which raises money for a U.S.-designated terror group and is itself classified as a terrorist organization by Canada and Israel. Two years later, in May 2026, Eren was elected to represent the architecture school on Columbia’s University Senate.
Hamas’s “communication networks” are “inspirational,” Eren said at the 2024 event, titled “Resistance 101.” “We have unprecedented unity among what used to be … called a fringe group.”
At a separate event with the Democratic Socialists of America, Eren said that SJP’s activism “puts a knife to the throat of our boards of trustees.”
Columbia describes the Senate as a “policy-making body which may consider all matters of University-wide concern,” including academic freedom and the budget. Though it was stripped of disciplinary powers as a part of the Trump administration’s settlement with Columbia in 2025, the Senate has continued to propose revisions to the university’s code of conduct—including the rules governing student protests—in defiance of the Board of Trustees. Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration placed disciplinary matters in the Office of the Provost, but the University Senate continues to wield influence over university-wide policies.
Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.
Eren’s election to the Senate, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which anti-Israel activists have continued to influence Columbia despite the university’s deal with the Trump administration.
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