NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani recognized as Black on Columbia software

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Metropolis, recognized as “Black or African American” on his 2009 Columbia College software though he now says he doesn’t think about himself Black, The New York Instances reported Thursday.

In accordance with The Instances, the inner knowledge got here from a leaked database of previous Columbia purposes which was a part of a latest hack focusing on the Ivy League faculty.

Mamdani, then a highschool senior, additionally checked “Asian” and reportedly wrote in “Ugandan” within the area for added background. He was finally not accepted to Columbia though his father is a professor on the elite faculty.

Now 33, Mamdani instructed The Instances he identifies as “an American who was born in Africa,” and stated checking a number of containers was an effort to replicate his “advanced background,” to not achieve an edge within the aggressive admissions course of.

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However on the time, Columbia, like many elite universities, used race-conscious admissions, a system the Supreme Courtroom struck down in 2023.

“Despite the fact that these containers are constraining,” Mamdani stated, “I needed my faculty software to replicate who I used to be.”

Mamdani instructed The Instances that apart from these faculty varieties, he doesn’t recall ever figuring out as Black or African American. 

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New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters throughout an election evening gathering. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Pictures)

His mother and father are each of Indian descent. His father, Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, has lived in East Africa for generations, however Mamdani stated there had been no intermarriage within the household with native African teams.

Mamdani has leaned into his South Asian and Muslim identification on the marketing campaign path. Throughout a June speech at Al Sharpton’s Nationwide Motion Community, he additionally harassed his African roots: “I used to be born in Kampala, Uganda… I used to be given my center title, Kwame, by my father, who named me after the primary Prime Minister of Ghana.”

President Donald Trump introduced up Mamdani at a rally Wednesday, saying if he interferes with immigration legal guidelines “we’ll should arrest him.” 

Zohran Mamdani, New York Metropolis mayoral candidate, throughout a marketing campaign occasion on the NAN Home of Justice within the Harlem neighborhood of New York, on Saturday, June 28, 2025.  (Adam Grey/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)

“Look, we don’t want a communist on this nation, but when we’ve got one, I’m going to be watching over them very fastidiously on behalf of the nation,” Trump added.

Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, dismissed the remarks, accusing Trump of “an try to ship a message to each New Yorker who refuses to cover within the shadows: should you converse up, they’ll come for you. We is not going to settle for this intimidation.”

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Fox Information Digital has reached out to the Mamdani marketing campaign for remark.