Articles written by Zohran Mamdani during his college years have resurfaced as his profile rises in New York City’s political landscape. A review by Fox News Digital reveals that Mamdani, a self-described socialist and Democratic mayoral nominee, used his time at Bowdoin College to promote radical views on race and Israel, including a call for an academic boycott of the Jewish state.
During his time at Bowdoin from 2010 to 2014, Mamdani authored 32 opinion pieces for the college newspaper, the Bowdoin Orient. In one of his final columns as a senior, Mamdani backed a push for academia to cut ties with Israel. “This academic and cultural boycott aims to bring under scrutiny the actions of the Israeli government and to put pressure on Israeli institutions to end the oppressive occupation and racist policies within both Israel and occupied Palestine,” he wrote. Mamdani also co-founded the college chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a group now known for organizing some of the loudest anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses, especially in the wake of the October 7 Hamas massacre, with some chapters going as far as glorifying the attack.
One of Mamdani’s targets in his article was Bowdoin’s president at the time, Barry Mills, who rejected the idea of an academic boycott. “Lastly, Mills regrettably makes no mention of Palestinians or Palestine,” Mamdani wrote. “The call for the boycott comes in response to more than 60 years of Israeli colonial occupation of Palestine. When Mills speaks of the ‘free exchange of knowledge, ideas, and research, and open discourse’ in academia, he does so while privileging partnerships with Israeli institutions over basic freedoms for Palestinians, including the rights to food, water, shelter and education, which many Palestinians are denied under Israeli rule.”
In another opinion piece from 2013, Mamdani accused a fellow White student of failing to recognize his own racial privilege after the student objected to claims that the school’s editorial section lacked diversity. “White males are privileged in their near-to-exclusive featuring as figures of authority in print, on television and around us in our daily realities,” Mamdani wrote. “We, the consumers of these media, internalize this and so believe in the innate authority of a white male’s argument and the need for its publication. So, white privilege is both a structural and an individual phenomenon, the former propelling the latter. Therefore, even when the individual is silent, the structures continue to exist and frame our society through their existence.”
He further elaborated on the lack of diversity in the campus newspaper’s opinion section, calling it a product of institutional racism. Mamdani wrote that the “pervasive male whiteness” of the school’s opinion pages “builds on the sadly still-present white male monopolization of both discourse and understanding.”
Expanding on the topic, Mamdani emphasized how white privilege operates, regardless of personal experience. “While whiteness is not homogenous, white privilege is. This privilege is clear in not having to face institutional racism in access to housing subsidies, college grants, financial institutions, or civil rights. It allows a white person to universalize his own experiences. It restricts society’s ability to understand its flaws, and projects a false image of meritocracy upon a nation built on institutional racism,” he wrote.
In a separate piece titled “Bearded in Cairo,” Mamdani recounted his semester abroad in Egypt during a period of political upheaval. He wrote about choosing to grow a beard before his trip as a way to confront American stereotypes about Muslim and South Asian men. He admitted the beard was “mostly as a symbolic middle finger” to the idea, widespread in America, that people with brown skin and beards are automatically seen as “terrorists.”
While in Egypt, Mamdani reflected on how racial privilege manifested differently. “Gone was the image of the white Christian male that I had grown accustomed to, and in its place was a darker, more familiar picture – ­­­one that, for the first time, I fit: brown skin, black hair, and a Muslim name,” Mamdani wrote. “With the right clothing, some took me for an Egyptian and most thought I was Syrian – either identity allowed me unrestricted access to exploring Cairo.”
In a 2014 article marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Bowdoin, Mamdani critiqued what he saw as complacency around diversity. Although the school had increased its non-white student population in recent years, he argued that it had fallen short of what true inclusivity required. “I have been forced to personally grapple with these inconsistencies during my time here,” Mamdani wrote.
He offered a personal window into how these shortcomings played out in everyday campus life. “I sit in class not knowing whether to correct everyone’s mispronunciation of an Indian woman’s name. I usually do, but today I’m tired. I’m tired of being one of a few non-white students in a classroom, if not the only one. I bring up race in discussions only to see the thought flicker in my peers eyes and on their tongues. They sigh without a sound. I’ve brought up race again. I’ve sidetracked the discussion. I’ve chosen to make an issue out of it.”
In the same article, Mamdani — born in Uganda to Indian parents — wrote candidly about the alienation he felt early in college. “I grow a beard only to be called a terrorist,” Mamdani wrote. “I pronounce the ‘h’ in my name only to hear muffled laughs. Clothing becomes exotic once it clads my body. Cotton shirts are called dashikis and sandals ethnic.”
He also described the insecurities he wrestled with during his freshman year. “While I am now comfortable in my own skin, I can remember wishing for whiteness my first year when I thought certain types of girls were impossible to talk to due to my skin being more kiwi than peach. Months later, I remember thinking that attraction might only be possible when a girl had ‘a thing for brown guys.’”
Despite finding a few like-minded peers, Mamdani remained frustrated by what he perceived as willful ignorance. “Still, too few people acknowledge that race is an issue on our campus, or that it has ever been one,” he wrote. “But if people say they are color blind, do they even see me?”
Mamdani captured national attention last month after an unexpected win in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, despite heavy criticism of his far-left platform. His campaign has called for radical changes, such as municipal-run grocery stores, police defunding, government-sanctioned drug sites, and a $30 minimum wage.
His win has deepened the divide within the Democratic Party. While some party leaders urge a centrist course following Kamala Harris’s loss in the presidential election, others have rallied behind the progressive movement championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who backed Mamdani’s campaign.
Now heading into the general election as the leading candidate in a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, Mamdani appears poised to extend his political rise.
{Matzav.com}