NYU Professor Suspended, Says Israeli Hostages "Enjoyed" Captivity
This week, NYU suspended Tomasz Skiba, an Applied Psychology Professor at NYU Steinhardt. Skiba’s suspension follows a slew of Instagram posts and stories on his account pertaining to the war between Israel and Hamas. On his account, Skiba reposted content that read “No, I don’t condemn Hamas…, but I do condemn the United States of America for taking our money and paying for a genocide.”
He also posted a video of himself where he stated that some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas “actually liked their time” in captivity, and maybe he “would also enjoy it and have good food and meet some people.”
“I was scared to show my face in class. Scared to sit there and be Jewish. Angry to be ‘academically’ guided by such a person.”
Skiba did not immediately respond to The NYU Review’s request for comment.
Suspended NYU Professor Tomasz Skiba, a Professor of Psychology at Steinhardt
His suspension, though viewed as a step in the right direction by NYU’s administration, did not come soon enough for students forced to sit in on his lectures.
One of Skiba’s students, Dani Chutter, returned from Israel the weekend after October 7th, and recounted for The NYU Review how horrified and uncomfortable she felt sitting in the professor’s class.
According to Chutter, the way in which Skiba walked into the class the week following the attack by the terror group with a smile on his face, asking students if they had a great weekend, after which he declared “I know I did!” was unnerving, uncomfortable and shocking. She affirmed that this was “unlike anything he had ever done before” and something that “he never did again.
For class assignments, Chutter consistently wrote about her role as “a Jewish woman in a secular world,” and after October 7th, she “felt through his posts and commentary on social media how little he thought of [her] and [her] people.” Going to class became a point of anxiety for her, as she was “scared to sit there and be Jewish,” frightened that Skiba might “say something to [her] for being openly Jewish and supporting Israel.”
After discovering Skiba’s posts, Chutter was petrified, shocked, and angry. Together with her roommates, she spent countless nights “anxiously watching his videos as he screamed to the camera that ‘resistance is justified,’ ‘stop the genocide,’ and ‘by any means necessary.’”
Though the content on Skiba’s account concerned her, Chutter and her friends in the Jewish community were primarily worried about the responses Skiba’s posts were garnering from her own classmates. “He had cultivated close relationships with some of his students, and students began to respond to posts of him spreading misinformation, perpetuating antisemitism, celebrating the brutal rape, mutilation, and slaughtering of Jewish people - it scared me,” Chutter remarked.
Her classmates “liked his posts, they commented, he liked their posts,” and it was evident to Chutter that Skiba's other students trusted his “harmful and misinformed posts” about the Israel/Hamas war and the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Skiba’s students were also left questioning his humanity, sanity, and character following his personal video addressing the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.
Skiba recorded himself alleging that he would enjoy time in terrorist captivity, because he would have the opportunity to “meet new people and eat good food.”
Chutter “couldn’t quite grasp how someone who has undergone years of learning and preparation to become a therapist could comment on such an objectively traumatic event (no matter where your political opinions lie).” But, much to her dismay, disappointment, and frustration, “he posted his videos daily, speaking to his impressionable followers and even classmates of mine,” his videos appearing to “[mock the hostages’] pain,” highlight the “‘importance’ of resistance by any means necessary,” and negate what had happened “on October 7th and the days following.”
“Personally, I reached a point where attending his class became a deeply anxiety provoking experience.”
When asked if she had spoken with any administrators at NYU regarding concerns over Skiba’s social media account, Chutter recounted that “every individual [she] spoke to at NYU responded with a sense of performative and feigned validation.”
For her, it felt as though “they listened to [her] so they could ‘check a box’ that they weren’t antisemitic.” At the end of the day, Chutter recounts feeling like “no one cared, and no one truly listened or did anything.” She consistently spoke to her advisors, the heads of her program, and even to a donor at NYU; she was shocked that he stayed teaching at NYU for as long as he did.
But, upon speaking with a Jewish faculty member at NYU about her experiences, Chutter realized that she wasn’t the only one harboring feelings of fear, isolation, and disregard; “it became painfully clear that this lack of acknowledgement I was feeling was not something I was alone in,” but rather that “this anti-semitic behavior and feigned validation [is] deeply rooted in the figures that run our school.”
In response to the news that Skiba was suspended, Chutter explained that it felt like she was expected to “celebrate the bare minimum.” According to her, it was the University’s job to implement and uphold a system that protects the needs and rights of students. For Chutter, suspending Skiba isn’t enough. “I am waiting to hear that NYU fires him,” she told The NYU Review. She is baffled that he is on paid suspension when he failed to uphold “the standards of what it means to be a professor,” and hopes that there is a thorough investigation into his psychology license.
Skiba’s suspension comes a week after a similar incident with Amin Hussein, a professor in NYU’s Gallatin. Husain was suspended following a video of him speaking to students at The New School that went viral; in the video, Hussein criticized the media’s portrayal of the war between Israel and Hamas, and told students that “October 7th was very important for Palestinians,” and that New York City is “a Zionist city.”
Husain’s suspension came after failure to adhere to NYU’s discrimination and anti-harassment policies, according to NYU Spokesman, John Beckman.
This is a developing story.
