Mohamed Abdou, a former Columbia University professor terminated for praising Hamas and advocating for jihad following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, is scheduled to speak at an event organized by New York University students on Tuesday. 

According to an Instagram flyer posted by Shut It Down NYU, a non-registered coalition of anti-Israel NYU students, faculty and staff, Abdou’s lecture — titled “The Student Movement is Dead. What Now?” — is the latest in a campus discussion series, the “Death to the Akademy” tour. His talk will evaluate the “successes and failures of the post Al Aqsa Flood [Oct. 7 attacks] student movement for Palestine,” according to the flyer, which features promotional art that depicts keffiyah-clad terrorists holding guns.

“NYU strongly condemns the brazen use of threatening language, as well as the imagery of violence in promotional posts for this event,” Wiley Norvell, senior vice president for university relations and public affairs, told Jewish Insider. “The group sponsoring the event is not an organization affiliated with the university, nor are the event or the invited speaker in any way supported by NYU. We are investigating several potential university policy violations associated with these posts.”

The event post does not identify a location for the event. As of Monday night, it was unclear whether the event will be held on campus or not. 

“Let us engage in jihad,” Abdou said in March, addressing Union Theological Seminary students by video. In the clip, he praised the May 2025 assassination of two Israeli Embassy employees outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. He went on to glorify the gunman, Elias Rodriguez, saying he “took action” against “two Zionists,” and encouraged students to similarly “be a threat.”

Abdou was one of several Columbia University faculty members named by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) during her April 2024 questioning of then-President Minouche Shafik. Stefanik asked Shafik about Abdou’s position at the university after he posted on social media on Oct. 11, 2023, “I’m with Hamas & Hezbollah & Islamic Jihad.” Shafik responded, “He will never work at Columbia again.” 

At Columbia, Abdou — who was active in Columbia’s anti-Israel encampment protesting the Gaza war — taught a class in the Middle East studies department called “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN” in the spring 2024 semester, a graduate-level course on “(neo)colonial/(neo)imperial Euro-American informed modernity,” according to the course description.

“I believe in an Islam that hates America,” Abdou wrote in a Substack piece last summer.