Of all the ways that Zohran Mamdani could be compared to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, this is likely the one he wanted least.
According to a report published Thursday evening in The New York Times, Mamdani claimed on his application to Columbia University to be both “Asian” and “Black or African American.”
This 2009 application, obtained by the Times, is at odds with his presentation of himself on the campaign trail, where he has stressed that he’s a Muslim of South Asian descent. It was among data stolen and released last month by a “hacktivist” who wanted to see if the Ivy League university was still using affirmative action to discriminate against students in spite of Supreme Court decisions that forbid heavily loading the dice against applicants solely due to their race.