The Columbia Unbecoming controversy was a controversy involving three professors at Columbia University in New York who some students and faculty thought were biased against Israel. At the center of the controversy was Joseph Massad, a Palestinian assistant professor who led the class Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies and who described Israel as a racist, settler-colonial state. For years, he was allegedly harassed by students in his class who disagreed with him. Pundits called for Columbia to fire him as they saw him as unfit to teach.