Individuals

An increasingly hostile campus environment doesn’t just magically happen. Behind the encampment protests and the sometimes-violent university occupations are people driving the conversation. Activist Tracker maintains a growing database of individual case files documenting the faculty members, students, activists, and public figures shaping campus discourse around radical ideology, hostile activism, terror, and antisemitism.

Each entry lays out what these individuals are actually doing on campus: the petitions they sign, the demonstrations they support, the statements they make, the organizations they lead, and the social media posts they proudly put out into the world.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Marie Myung-Ok Lee
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is an American novelist, essayist, and cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop who teaches in Columbia University’s Writing Division. Over the past two years, Lee has used her public platform to champion pro-Palestinian activism on and off campus, including joining the 2024 encampment and repeatedly amplifying content accusing Israel of mass atrocities. Her posts and participation positioned her among the faculty voices legitimizing a protest movement that many Jewish students described as hostile, exclusionary, and unsafe.
Read More
Mabel O. Wilson
Mabel O. Wilson
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Mabel O. Wilson is an architect, designer, and professor at Columbia University’s GSAPP whose academic work on race and the built environment increasingly overlaps with pro-Palestinian political activism. Wilson has become a visible faculty supporter of the 2024 pro-Hamas encampment, publicly framing Israel as a genocidal power and casting student protesters as moral actors in a global anti-colonial struggle. Her platform and reputation give significant institutional weight to rhetoric that has contributed to an unsafe and hostile environment for Jewish students on campus.
Read More
Fernando Montero
Fernando Montero
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Fernando Montero Castrillo is an anthropologist and Associate Research Scientist at Columbia’s School of Social Work who has consistently aligned himself with the most radical anti-Israel activism on campus. His participation in the 2024 pro-Hamas encampment and long record of supporting academic boycotts and “resistance” narratives place him firmly within the faculty cohort that helped legitimize one of the most hostile campus climates Jewish students have faced.
Read More
Ansley Erickson
Ansley Erickson
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Ansley T. Erickson is a historian of educational inequality and urban history at Columbia University whose recent public role centers far more on political activism than scholarship. Over the past two years, Erickson has become a prominent faculty defender of pro-Palestinian protest movements, joining the 2024 pro-Hamas encampment, publicly denouncing antisemitism investigations, and consistently framing federal scrutiny of Columbia as an attack on academic freedom rather than a response to Jewish student safety concerns.
Read More
Randa Serhan
Randa Serhan
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Randa B. Serhan is a Lebanese sociologist and Term Associate Professor at Barnard College whose academic focus on the Palestinian diaspora is closely intertwined with her political activism. Beyond her scholarship, Serhan has become a visible faculty supporter of pro-Palestinian protest movements at Columbia and Barnard, including joining the 2024 pro-Hamas encampment and repeatedly defending activists, even as Jewish students reported escalating intimidation and a hostile campus climate.
Read More
James Piacentini
James Piacentini
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
James Samuel Piacentini is a Jewish cartographer, designer, and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP). While his academic work focuses on cities and environmental systems, Piacentini has become a vocal defender of the most militant pro-Palestinian protest movements on campus — openly identifying as “anti-Zionist,” defending activists facing legal consequences, and joining the 2024 encampment, a protest site widely documented for its hostile and exclusionary rhetoric toward Jewish and Israeli students.
Read More
Elga Castro
Elga Castro
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Elga Castro Ramos is an adjunct Spanish professor at Barnard College whose academic work on nationalism and sports now takes a back seat to her public activism. Since October 7, she has become a vocal, constant presence in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protest ecosystem, openly accusing Israel of “genocide,” defending student activists, and physically joining the 2024 encampment. Her faculty presence and online amplification helped legitimize one of the most hostile campus environments Jewish students have faced in recent years.
Read More
John Ma
John Ma
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
John Tachiang Ma is a Columbia University classics professor whose academic expertise in ancient Greece stands in stark contrast to his recent activism on campus. Though once connected to Hebrew University and Jewish Studies, Ma has increasingly aligned himself with the most aggressive protest movements at Columbia, including directly supporting the pro-Hamas encampment and publicly criticizing police intervention while Jewish students reported feeling unsafe. His faculty status and online posting amplified a protest environment later cited in a Title VI lawsuit alleging pervasive antisemitism.
Read More
Reinhold Martin
Reinhold Martin
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Reinhold Martin is an architectural historian and longtime Columbia professor who has become one of the most vocal defenders of pro-Palestinian activism on campus. As president of the AAUP, he has repeatedly used his national platform to shield faculty and student activists from scrutiny, dismiss institutional concerns about antisemitism, and frame aggressive protest movements (including the 2024 pro-Hamas encampment) as essential expressions of “academic freedom.
Read More
Keith Gessen
Keith Gessen
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Keith Gessen is a Russian-born American novelist, journalist, and assistant professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Though publicly identifying as a Jewish faculty member, Gessen has increasingly aligned himself with the campus movements that downplay antisemitism, defend the pro-Hamas encampment, and push hardline critiques of Israel while minimizing or omitting the experiences of Israeli victims. His academic and media platform lend significant weight to narratives that have fueled the hostile climate Jewish students face at Columbia.
Read More
Frances Negron-Muntaner
Frances Negron-Muntaner
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a Columbia University professor and activist-scholar whose cultural work now overlaps directly with some of the most aggressive anti-Israel movements on campus. Despite her academic reputation, she has repeatedly positioned herself alongside protests and narratives that have fueled one of the most openly hostile environments Jewish students at Columbia have faced in years, including joining the 2024 encampment, a protest site notorious for violent rhetoric and intimidation.
Read More
Adam Tooze
📍 New York City
🗺️ New York
🏫 Columbia University (Columbia)
Adam Tooze is a British economic historian and professor at Columbia University, where he directs the European Institute and maintains a prominent global platform through writing, media appearances, and his Foreign Policy podcast Ones and Tooze. While positioned within academic leadership, Tooze has increasingly used his scholarship and public influence to advance overtly political commentary on Israel, Gaza, and U.S. foreign policy - framing Israeli actions as “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” or “scholasticide” and publicly supporting pro-Palestinian organizing on campus.
Read More