Chicago professor calls university ‘evil’ but stays to build power

A leftist professor slammed her “evil” university as a “colonialist landlord,” but said she continues to work at the school because she views it as a place in American society where she can amass power.

“F— the University of Chicago, it’s evil, you know it’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space? I kind of had a little bit of disdain for people who spent their time doing that,” University of Chicago Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Eman Abdelhadi said at the Socialism 2025 convention Saturday.

Socialism 2025 bills itself as “a four-day conference bringing together thousands of socialists and radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions about social movements, abolition, Marxism, decolonization, working-class history, and the debates and strategies for organizing today.” 

Abdelhadi made her remarks at the panel entitled “Revolutionary Accompaniment: Holding Each Other When Things Fall Apart.” 

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“This is a painful lesson that a lot of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have been learning is that we don’t have power… what we don’t have is power… the question I’m asking myself, and I’m asking you to ask yourself, ‘is where can I actually build power?’” the professor said. 

Abdelhadi went on to say that after she realized that the University of Chicago, which was founded in 1890, is one of the Windy City’s largest employers, it occurred to her that she had access to thousands of people whom she could organize around her far-left causes.

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“Turns out, I work at one of the biggest employers in the city of Chicago. I work at a place that is a landlord, a healthcare provider, a police force, f— that s—, but, they are, and a place where I have access to thousands of people that I could potentially organize… actually, this is where I need to build power. That’s possible structural leverage,” said Abdelhadi, who was wearing a black COVID mask over her face. 

University campuses have become a hotbed of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks against Israel, which saw the most Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust. 

Anti-Israel tent encampments emerged at university campuses across the country, particularly at elite institutions. The encampments saw students praise Hamas, chant for the extermination of Jews in Israel from “the river to the sea” and assault and harass Jewish students. 

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Abdelhadi claimed at the panel that though her anti-Israel movement lacks power, it has won the “moral high ground.”

Abdelhadi teaches in the University of Chicago’s Department of Comparative Human Development and is working on a book focused on how subcultural communities reproduce themselves across generations, according to her professor’s page on the University of Chicago website. She described herself as a “young brown queer woman” during the panel. 

The University of Chicago and Professor Abdelhadi did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.