Christopher Rufo and Hannah Grossman write for City Journal about one Ivy League professor’s objectionable actions.

Columbia University has been ground zero for the Ivy League’s pro-Hamas demonstrators. Since the October 7, 2023, terror attack, activists at the university have set up encampments, occupied buildings, shut down classes, and targeted Jewish students. The Trump administration recently moved to revoke a protest leader’s green card and canceled $400 million in federal funding because of the university’s failure to address anti-Semitism on campus.

This student-led movement is also supported by some faculty. We have identified one Columbia professor, neuropsychologist Jennifer J. Manly, who participated in the pro-Hamas protests and stood in a human blockade intending to prevent administrators from dismantling the unauthorized encampments last April. …

… Our research has revealed that Manly is not only employed by the university but also subsidized by the American taxpayer. According to the National Institutes of Health and other publicly accessible databases, she has been named in connection with over $100 million in grants over the past 20 years. Much of her research is based on the so-called social determinants of health thesis, which posits that racism, sexism, and homophobia can cause brain disease in “Black and Latinx communities”—a thesis that critics have described as pseudo-science. (Manly, Columbia, and NIH did not return requests for comment.)

Manly’s appearance at a pro-Hamas rally, coupled with her activist academic research, raises serious questions about the medical establishment, which has directed large sums of taxpayer dollars to ideologues disguised as professors and to activism disguised as science. And it gives further grist to officials in the Trump administration, who have argued that funding cuts are necessary to disrupt the pipeline of left-wing radicals. …

… Manly’s work is lavishly funded by taxpayers. Most recently, the National Institutes of Health gave her and her team nearly $700,000 to produce work linking racism to brain disease.