Columbia University has tapped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to lead a course on diplomacy, decision-making and organizational leadership starting next month.
Pompeo, who served in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021, will take a role as a fellow at the Ivy League school’s Institute of Global Politics as Columbia and other elite schools face pressure to show an openness to conservative ideas, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“The Academy cannot be an ivory tower. We should engage with the world because we learn a lot from engaging with practitioners with differing positions and ideologies who also ultimately can learn from us,” Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told the outlet.
Pompeo, who saw his security detail revoked by Trump last month, said he was looking forward to teaching on the campus and having “fair, reasoned, and fact-based discourse.”
“The United States’ greatest risk is that we refuse to teach the next generation about the greatness of our nation,” he told the WSJ.
Pompeo suggested he was purposefully brought on campus to help the university quell the controversies it has faced in recent years, including claims that it has allowed antisemitism to run amok following the chaotic anti-Israel protests.
The former secretary of state has long been an ally of Israel and controversially shifted decades-long US policy by claiming Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank were not a violation of international law.
He also oversaw the move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Columbia has said the move to hire Pompeo was not spurred by any political pressure, and that his recruitment to campus had been in the works for months.