Professor caught on video insulting woman in hijab will no longer teach at Arizona State

An Arizona State University academic seen in a viral video confronting a woman in a hijab during a pro-Israel protest near campus has been fired from the institution, ASU said this week.

Jonathan Yudelman, a postdoctoral fellow in ASU’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership who taught two courses in the spring, has been banned from the school, according to a statement released Thursday by ASU President Michael Crow.

“He is no longer allowed to be on campus and will never teach here again,” said the president of the university.

Attempts to reach Yudelman for comment through other current academic affiliations were unsuccessful.

Yudelman participated in a pro-Israel protest just outside campus on May 5. A video shows him confronting an unidentified woman wearing a hijab, a head covering for Muslim women, and telling her: “I’m literally looking at your face – that’s right.”

She said, “You’re disrespecting my religious boundaries,” to which Yudelman responded, “You’re disrespecting my sense of humanity, b—-.”

It’s not clear what happened before the clip began capturing the back-and-forth between the scholar, an unidentified man accompanying him and the woman.

Yudelman was placed on leave Monday while ASU investigated the incident and was not allowed to visit campus, teach classes or interact with students or staff, the university said in a statement Wednesday.

But on Thursday, ASU indicated through the president’s statement that it would permanently cut ties.

Yudelman had resigned from his position at ASU before the May 5 incident. The resignation took effect June 30 and he was not scheduled to teach before his final day, the university said Wednesday.

It also said the matter had been referred to the Tempe City Police Department, which has jurisdiction over the off-campus area where the incident occurred.

“Arizona State University protects freedom of speech and expression but does not tolerate threatening or violent behavior,” the institution said Wednesday.

Azza Abuseif, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, thanked ASU for cutting ties with Yudelman and called on police to arrest him on harassment charges, although it is unclear whether any laws were broken during the confrontation was violated.

“Law enforcement should make it clear that such intimidation and attacks will not be tolerated,” Abuseif said in a statement on Friday.

The confrontation came as pro-Palestinian protests on campuses from coast to coast heated up. Students have come out en masse to support the Palestinian people caught between Hamas militants, who attacked Israel on October 7, and Israeli military might, which has unleashed a war that has uprooted 1.7 million people, mostly civilians, in neighboring Gaza has, is trapped.

Institutions like Columbia, where the best-known protest camp emerged, and UCLA, scene of violent clashes between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and supporters of Israel, welcomed police in riot gear who initiated mass arrests.

The May 5 rally was attended by about 100 people and resulted in only one arrest when officers became aware of a suspect unaffiliated with the school for allegedly spray-painting campus property during a “pro-Palestine” rally. rally last weekend, a campus police spokesman said.

Yudelman lists other current academic affiliations on his resume. These include Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Intellectual Foundations at the University of Austin in Texas; and faculty membership at the Tikvah Fund, a nonprofit organization in New York City that promotes Jewish ideas and describes itself on its website as “politically Zionist, economically free-market oriented, culturally traditional, and theologically open.”