Columbia Suspends Ilhan Omar’s Daughter One Day After Omar Grilled School Administrators

Omar’s questions to the administrators during a Wednesday congressional hearing on antisemitism at Columbia touched on the school’s response to students being sprayed with a chemical at a campus rally for Gaza and its policy surrounding professors harassing students online.

University President Nemat Minouche Shafik announced that two students were suspended in relation to the January protest and that a professor was under investigation for complaints over his social media posts about students.

During a hearing premised on the idea that there is rampant antisemitism on Columbia’s campus, Omar also got Shafik to say that there had been no protests targeting specific ethnic or religious groups — Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, or Jews.

“I think that the line of questioning which my mother asked was definitely a pressure for Columbia University,” said Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, who is a junior at Barnard College, Columbia’s women’s school.

Hirsi, who has been an active participant in campus protests over the war and said she hadn’t received any prior disciplinary warning, noted that other factors may have been at play too. “And then added pressure from me also giving interviews and people knowing that I am the daughter of her at the same time,” she told The Intercept.