Portland State University has placed a professor on administrative leave after a video circulated online in which they appear to express support for Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.
Portland State University campus in Portland, Ore., June 29, 2024.
Anna Lueck / OPB
In the video, the professor of world languages and literatures is responding to an anonymous interviewer, who asks: “Do you know Hamas?” and “What was the plan for Hamas?” The professor responds “I am Hamas” and then, gesturing to a crowd of protesters nearby, adds “We are all Hamas.”
The U.S. government has considered Hamas a foreign terrorist organization since 1997. Other world governments, including Canada and the European Union, also consider Hamas a terrorist group. Hamas is responsible for the attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israel in October 2023, which killed more than 1,000 people and led to more than 200 being taken hostage. In the ongoing war since then, Israel has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza.
OPB is not naming the professor in the video because PSU has not identified them by name, and the instructor didn’t immediately respond to OPB’s efforts to contact them.
In an announcement titled “Statement on reprehensible video,” PSU President Ann Cudd said the university is opposed to antisemitism, terrorism and hate of any kind. The statement said that what the professor was captured saying on the video was “absolutely unacceptable.” The PSU statement noted that the video was recorded at “an independent, non-university event off campus.”
The Trump administration is already investigating PSU for alleged antisemitism connected to protests last year against the war in Gaza.
Some of Cudd’s statement appeared aimed at demonstrating that the university is working to ensure antisemitism is not a problem on campus. Going back more than a year, PSU has wrestled with activists pressuring the university to distance itself from Israel on one hand, and concerns that administrators weren’t doing enough to protect Jewish students on campus on the other. For much of last spring, pro-Palestine protesters demonstrated on the downtown Portland campus, culminating in a multi-day occupation of the campus library, which resulted in more than a million dollars in property damage.
“We have taken a number of steps this year to improve the safety of our campus and protect free speech,” Cudd’s statement said. “For example, we clarified and posted time, place, manner standards for free speech. PSU’s Office of Equity & Compliance staff conduct in-person and remote training on a regular basis related to bias response and reporting.”
The statement also notes that more than 100 students are taking a free, one-credit course on antisemitism. The course, new this spring, examines the history of antisemitism, teaches ways to recognize antisemitism, and puts it in context with other forms of racism, according to a university course description.
PSU said it is investigating the incident in the video and the professor involved.
Cudd said, “We recognize that events like this one indicate the need for additional education.”
