Mae Ngai
Overview
Mae Ngai [Mai M. Ngai] petitioned Columbia University (Columbia) President Lee Bollinger to publicly oppose Israeli security measures, is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has demonized Israel.Ngai is the Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and a professor of History at Columbia.
Pressuring Columbia University’s President
The letter was sent one month after OCL.
Supporting BDS
Ngai signed a 2016 Faculty Petition at Columbia pushing for BDS.In the Columbia petition, signatories expressed that they “take issue with our financial involvements in institutions associated with the State of Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, continued violations of Palestinian human rights, systematic destruction of life and property, inhumane segregation and systemic forms of discrimination.”
The petition went on to state that signatories stood with Columbia University Apartheid Divest and the anti-Israel groups Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) “in calling upon the University to take a moral stance against Israel's violence in all its forms.”
Ngai also signed a letter from members of Columbia’s faculty to the New York State Assembly, published on February 13, 2014, calling for its members to oppose a piece of anti-BDS legislation.
Signatories of the letter affirmed: “we all firmly believe that academics have a right to express their political views through a wide range of protected speech, including boycotts.”
Demonizing Israel
In January 2019, Ngai signed a petition, published by the anti-Israel website, Mondoweiss, expressing support for activist Angela Davis.Signatories of the petition wrote: “we do share Dr. Davis’ view that the Israeli Occupation is wrong, and that the repressive, discriminatory and often violent policies of the Israeli government vis-à-vis the Palestinian population are wrong and indefensible.”
The petition went on state that its purpose was to take “a stance against the policies of the Israeli government, and our own government’s immoral support of those policies.”
In an interview in “Forward: the Journal of Socialist Thought,” No.5, February 1986 and reprinted in the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revsionism Online, Ngai reportedly stated that “Israel continues to terrorize the people of Lebanon and deny the Palestinian people their homeland.”
Ngai went on to say: “People in the U.S. must condemn the U.S. government’s policy of supporting Israeli aggression and terrorism and opposing the Palestinian people. The denial of a homeland for the Palestinian people is one of the root causes of the turmoil in the Middle East.”
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website: https://history.columbia.edu/faculty/ngai-mae/
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Columbia
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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