In Case You Missed It, Fox News reported that Oberlin College professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati has been placed on “administrative leave” a year after Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Congressman Jim Banks (R-IN) sent a letter to Oberlin College demanding answers on Mahallati’s ties to the Iranian regime. These disturbing allegations, along with the current investigation into antisemitism on Oberlin’s campus, shows the continued need for strong accountability for those in academia.
The Ohio-based Oberlin College removed a former Iran regime official and religion professor, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, from his teaching post after a three-year pressure campaign from Iranian Americans who were outraged over his role in covering up the mass murder of at least 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.
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Fox News Digital reported last month that Iran’s former U.N. ambassador, Mahallati, wasbeing investigated by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights for subjecting Jewish students to harassment, including defending the U.S. and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas.
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The ostensible ouster of Mahallati marks a stunning admission by Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar that her three-year defense of Mahallati was no longer tenable. Ambar and her administration have been reeling from a series of Mahallati scandals since 2020, including his alleged endorsement of a fatwa to murder the American-British author Salman Rushdie.
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The scandal-plagued Mahallati was also rocked by disclosures from Oberlin College graduate Melissa Landa last month on FOX Business that he sexually harassed a student at Columbia University in the 1990s.
Landa also discussed on FOX Business her 2019 complaint with the Department of Education that sparked the agency’s investigation into allegations of widespread antisemitism on the Oberlin campus.
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Oberlin College spokeswoman Simakis told Fox News Digital "We learned of the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York against Mahallati from a media inquiry sent to us Dec. 5. We would not hire a faculty member whom we knew had a history of sexual assault, harassment, or abuse of anyone, including a student, colleague, or staff member."
