Professor suspended for describing Oct. 7 attack as 'exhilarating' reinstated by Hobart and William Smith Colleges

A professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York has been reinstated after writing and publishing an essay online that referred to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel as “exhilarating.”

Professor Jodi Dean was the subject of a college investigation after publishing her essay, but the investigation has been completed and Dean will be reinstated in the upcoming semester, according to Middle East Eye.

The president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Mark Gearan, wrote in a statement that although “certain of Professor Dean’s statements caused harm to members of our community and were inconsistent with our community values and principles. … Professor Dean’s conduct did not rise to the level of harassment or discrimination under the law or our policies.”

“Professor Dean is free to return to the classroom this fall,” Gearan said.

Dean has been a professor of politics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges since 1993. She has a Ph.D. and M.A. from Columbia University, according to her biography on Hobart and William Smith’s website.

Dean has previously taught classes on “Introduction to Feminist Theory,” “Critical Social Studies,” and “Communism.”

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“The images from October 7 of paragliders evading Israeli air defenses were for many of us exhilarating,” Dean wrote in the controversial essay, which was published on Verso Books on Apr. 9. “Here were moments of freedom, that defeated Zionist expectations of submission to occupation and siege.”

“In them, we witnessed seemingly impossible acts of bravery and defiance in the face of the certain knowledge of the devastation that would follow,” Dean continued.

Dean, still writing about the Hamas attack against Israel, emphasizes being “energized” from hearing about people “flying freely through the air” in an attempt to fight “imperialism” and “occupation.”

“Who could not feel energized seeing oppressed people bulldozing the fences enclosing them, taking to the skies in escape, and flying freely through the air?” Dean asks in the essay. “The shattering of the collective sense of the possible made it seem as if anyone could be free, as if imperialism, occupation, and oppression can and will be overthrown.”

The essay then continues to detail “resistance” movements that Palestinians have historically made against Israel throughout the past several decades, before referring to Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas as a “genocide.”

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“In the six months since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine,” Dean wrote, “there has been a surge in global solidarity with Palestine, one reminiscent of the previous wave of the 1970s and 1980s.”

In addition to the essay sympathetic to Hamas attackers, Dean has also written a number of books, including “The Communist Horizon” and “Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing.”

Campus Reform has contacted Professor Jodi Dean and Hobart and William Smith Colleges for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.