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“As he runs for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has made his identity as a Muslim immigrant of South Asian descent a key part of his appeal. But as a high school senior in 2009, Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, claimed another label when he applied to Columbia University. Asked to identify his race, he checked a box that he was ‘Asian’ but also ‘Black or African American,’ according to internal data derived from a hack of Columbia University that was shared with The New York Times…
“Columbia, like many elite universities, used a race-conscious affirmative action admissions program at the time. Reporting that his race was Black or African American in addition to Asian could have given an advantage to Mr. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and spent his earliest years there…
“In an interview [last] Thursday, Mr. Mamdani, 33, said he did not consider himself either Black or African American, but rather ‘an American who was born in Africa.’ He said his answers on the college application were an attempt to represent his complex background given the limited choices before him, not to gain an upper hand in the admissions process. (He was not accepted at Columbia.)” New York Times
Here’s our previous coverage of the NYC mayoral election. The Flip Side
The left is critical of the Times’ decision to publish the story, accusing it of bias against Mamdani.
“The Times’s decision to pursue and publish the story was, at the very least, unwise. For one thing, it came to the Times due to a widespread hack into Columbia’s databases, transmitted to the paper through an intermediary who was given anonymity by the paper. That source turns out to be Jordan Lasker, who – as the Guardian has reported – is a well-known and much criticized ‘eugenicist’, AKA white supremacist…
“The incident raises a larger issue: the Times’s apparent opposition to Mamdani’s candidacy. On the opinion side of the paper, there’s little question about that. Even though the Times no longer makes endorsements for mayor, they published an editorial urging voters to avoid ranking Mamdani at all on their ballots because he was so unqualified… With this made-up scandal, combined with the pre-election editorial, the Times looks like it’s on a crusade against Mamdani.”
Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian
“For those who don’t know, Mamdani was born in Uganda, which is in Africa. He is also the son of Indian immigrants to America. Shocking, I know… To make it worse, the NYT censored its own writer, Jamelle Bouie, who called them out for this horrific lapse of editorial judgment, and asked him to remove his critical comments…
“Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the major NYT story on Donald Trump using the anti-semitic term ‘shylock’ to describe NYC Jewish bankers. It took ADL an entire day to come out with a weak criticism. I guess actual anti-semitism and Sieg Heils aren’t as troubling as pro-Palestinian chants and college students who are against genocide.”
Wajahat Ali, The Left Hook
“On the economy, Mamdani’s abstract ideological commitments are extreme and left-wing. But then, Bill de Blasio’s were even more so… De Blasio’s mayoralty wasn’t my cup of tea, but we survived — in fact, the city did quite well economically…
“There are also aspects of Mamdani’s economic viewpoint that are downright market-friendly. His virally popular plan to fight ‘Halalflation’ — the rising price of chicken-and-rice from New York’s food carts — is deregulatory, as he argues the city should issue more truck licenses so that cart operators don’t need to pay extortionate rents to license holders…
“Mamdani also supports the recently enacted ‘City of Yes’ reforms that seek to increase housing production through the relaxation of zoning requirements. He has talked about how housing is an area where his views have changed over time — that he’s come to understand the importance of private capital for housing production… I also think it’s a good sign that he’s been working with Kathy Wylde to build bridges to the city’s business establishment.”
Josh Barro, Substack
The right is critical of Mamdani, arguing that he was exploiting a loophole in the admissions system.
The right is critical of Mamdani, arguing that he was exploiting a loophole in the admissions system.
“Affirmative action was created to correct a specific, historic injustice – namely, the exclusion of black Americans from educational and economic opportunity due to slavery, segregation and systemic racism. That legacy should never be dismissed. But somewhere along the way, the mission morphed. The clear moral case for helping the descendants of American slavery became a bureaucratic puzzle of identity checkboxes and social engineering…
“[Mamdani] is South Asian, Muslim, foreign-born, and left-wing. He checks nearly every ‘diversity’ box – except the one that actually reflects the lived black American experience… Mamdani didn’t cheat the system. He played by its rules. And that’s exactly the problem… When Columbia and schools like it make race a major factor in admissions, they create a system that rewards creative box-checking and punishes honesty.”
David Sypher Jr., Spectator World
“Mamdani and [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez adopted the identities of the poor and downtrodden as they ascended the ranks of politics. Both built their political personas on a small kernel of truth: Mamdani claimed on his college application to be black because he was born in Uganda, despite being the son of two famous, affluent, and educated Indians; Ocasio-Cortez claimed to be a ‘Bronx girl’ because she lived in the borough until age five, when she moved to a tony corner of Westchester County…
“Though both could doubtlessly point toward some personal slight or past injustice against their ethnic group, neither Mamdani nor Ocasio-Cortez can lay a real claim to historical oppression. Indian Americans are among the most educated and affluent groups in America, and the vast majority of Latinos arrived in the United States after desegregation and the Civil Rights Act.”
Christopher F. Rufo, City Journal
“Freezing rent prices? Building more public housing? Converting private properties into communes? I’ve heard those ideas before. President Hugo Chávez did the same in Venezuela with his ‘Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela’ program: he promised to end market abuses, offered free housing and began to nationalize private properties. The result? Collapsed investment, poorly built homes, widespread corruption and millions living in terrible conditions…
“Free public transportation? I saw it. In Venezuela, Chávez did it: he declared transportation a ‘right’ and fully subsidized it. The prices were so ‘low’ that they didn’t even cover basic operating costs. What happened? The system collapsed. Without maintenance, the buses stopped circulating. Today, millions of people spend hours in line to get on one bus, if it arrives… I lived Mamdani’s socialist dream, and I had to flee to survive.”
Franklin Camargo, Fox News
“Let's say the government gave special consideration on the basis of race when awarding federal contracts, and a white man from South Africa checked a box claiming to be ‘Black or African American.’ We can even give our made-up aspiring federal contractor a name: Elon Musk. I suspect Democrats would not say this was a non-story, even though South Africa is indeed a country in Africa…
“All that said: Yes, this story is something of a nothingburger as far as Mamdani is concerned. I don't really blame him for getting creative in order to (imperfectly) capture the nuances of a complicated ethnic background. But I'd add that ethnic backgrounds are usually somewhat complicated. Identities have a habit of defying easy labeling, which is precisely why the project of using broad racial categorization to assign merit is fraught and inadvisable.”
Robby Soave, Reason
