State: New York
City: New York City
Campus: Columbia University (Columbia)
Born in Moscow in 1975 and raised outside Boston, Keith Gessen is a co-founder of the literary magazine n+1, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and an assistant professor at Columbia Journalism School. While well known in literary circles, Gessen has become increasingly entangled with campus activism surrounding Israel and Gaza, using his institutional position and media reach to legitimize movements that have intensified tensions for Jewish students on campus.
In April 2024, Gessen did more than just comment from afar: he participated in and publicly supported the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia : a protest site where antisemitic hostility, intimidation, and violent slogans were normalized. That same month, he co-authored and signed multiple open letters attacking university leadership for addressing antisemitism, including “Jewish Faculty Reject the Weaponization of Antisemitism,” a statement that reframed Jewish safety concerns as political exaggeration.
His April 2024 essay in The New Yorker, “Is This Israel’s Forever War?”, focused almost entirely on Gaza and repeatedly foregrounded Palestinian suffering while notably omitting any mention of the Israeli hostages; a silence that mirrors the selective framing common in campus activism.
By July 2024, Gessen was questioning NYPD reports and opposing restrictions on journalists during campus unrest, positioning himself as a defender of the encampment’s narrative rather than acknowledging the documented harassment faced by Jewish students.
Gessen’s dual platform – Columbia faculty member and New Yorker writer – gives his political positions outsized influence. His participation in the encampment and opposition to institutional responses strengthened activist efforts to minimize or dismiss rising antisemitic incidents on campus.
Apr 2024: Participated in and publicly supported the pro-Hamas encampment.
Apr 2024: Co-authored “Jewish Faculty Reject the Weaponization of Antisemitism,” attacking efforts to address antisemitic harassment.
Apr 2024: Published “Is This Israel’s Forever War?” – a piece that focused on Palestinian perspectives while omitting Israeli hostages entirely.
Apr 2024: Signed petitions defending Columbia’s administration from accountability during congressional scrutiny.
Jul 2024: Used his role within the University Senate to cast doubt on NYPD findings related to campus safety.
Nov 2023: Signed a statement condemning alleged threats to journalists covering the war.
His repeated alliances with activist faculty groups place him firmly within the network of Columbia professors who have defended the encampments, undermined student safety concerns, and framed antisemitism as a political tool rather than a lived threat.
Let’s call it what it is: Keith Gessen leveraged his identity, his faculty status, and his New Yorker byline to give political cover to a protest movement that Jewish students repeatedly described as threatening and unsafe. Faculty involvement like his didn’t just “support free expression” : it normalized a protest space where “intifada” chants, anti-Israel slogans, and targeted harassment became part of daily campus life.
When a journalism professor backs a movement that shouts down Jewish students, dismisses antisemitism as propaganda, and pushes selective narratives that erase Israeli victims, it sends a clear message about whose safety matters and whose does not. His repeated public interventions, from open letters to Senate debates, consistently aligned with the activist faction seeking to delegitimize concerns about antisemitism rather than confront them.
The result is predictable: a campus where Jewish students feel isolated, unsafe, and unprotected; a campus where faculty authority is used not to steady the environment, but to inflame it.
Universities cannot ignore the role professors play in escalating hostility. Accountability is not about punishing dissent; it’s about acknowledging the real-world impact when influential faculty repeatedly validate rhetoric that has already pushed Columbia into crisis.
