Abdul El-Sayed slammed for ‘racist’ Columbia research paper he wrote concluding Arab women should mate with their own

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Fahmy, G. (2026, October 17). Abdul El-Sayed slammed for ‘racist’ Columbia research paper he wrote concluding Arab women should mate with their own. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2026/10/17/us-news/el-sayed-argued-in-columbia-research-arab-women-should-procreate-with-their-own/

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New York Post · collected 2026-10-17 · by Gabrielle Fahmy

Quick Summary

Abdul El-Sayed, a left-wing Senate candidate, is facing criticism over a research paper he wrote while at Columbia University in 2011. The paper, published in the "Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health," suggests that Arab women should only mate with their own kind to avoid adverse birth outcomes, specifically citing increased risks of premature births when partnered with non-Arab men. Critics have labeled the study as racist and pseudoscientific, pointing out omissions such as not mentioning that adjusting for maternal and socioeconomic factors eliminates the observed disparities in birth outcomes.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-18, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Abdul El-Sayed, a left-wing Senate candidate, is facing criticism for a 2011 research paper he co-authored at Columbia University. The paper suggested that Arab women have better health outcomes if they only mate within their own ethnic group due to an increased risk of premature birth when mixing with other ethnicities. In the study published in the "Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health," El-Sayed, then identified as Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, claimed that Arab mothers were 16% less likely than white women to give birth prematurely, based on his own earlier research from 2008. However, he omitted the finding that this gap disappeared when considering additional factors.

Critics like Katya Sedgwick argue that El-Sayed's stance is racist and incompatible with American values. The controversy resurfaced ahead of El-Sayed’s Senate candidacy, drawing scrutiny over his past academic work and his self-proclaimed status as a physician despite not completing medical school residency requirements.

Written for “Abdul El-Sayed Criticized For Paper” on 2026-10-18, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.65, but every quote it verified points right, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 87779: score contradicts its own evidence · logged 2026-10-18

Story

📰 Abdul El-Sayed Criticized For Paper
Politics · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

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How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

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Claims extracted
25
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
12%
3 of 25 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
withheld
no quote in the article backed the model's score
Publisher signals
67/100
New York Post's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-10-18 · how these are computed

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Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

New York Post · 11294 article(s) · 32 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 32 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Gabrielle Fahmy
24 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
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🔮 El-Sayed — who has repeatedly called himself a physician though he never completed his medical school residency — warned in the 2011 paper published in the “Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health” of the hazards of “interethnic mating” — which he insisted increased the risk of children being born premature. “Our findings suggest that interethnic mating may be associated with increased risk for adverse birth outcomes among Arab ethnicity mothers,” he stated, back then going by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed.
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Also by Gabrielle Fahmy
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 24 articles by Gabrielle Fahmy →

Topics

American Arab Columbia University Muslim Senate

Subjects

Arab NORP · 15× El-Sayed PERSON · 4× Muslim NORP · 3× Abdul El-Sayed PERSON · 2× American NORP · 2× Senate ORG · 2× non-Arab NORP · 2× Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed PERSON · 1× Columbia University ORG · 1× the “Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health ORG · 1×

Narrative

“So he, an Arab man, can mate interracially, no problem, but Arab women, in his scientific opinion, it seems, are better off staying within their own tribes,” slammed writer Katya Sedgwick on X. “El Sayed exhibits great many third world attitudes that are repressive, violent, and incompatible with our way of life.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-18
🔮 El-Sayed — who has repeatedly called himself a physician though he never completed his medical school residency — warned in the 2011 paper published in the “Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health” of the hazards of “interethnic mating” — which he insisted increased the risk of children being born premature. “Our findings suggest that interethnic mating may be associated with increased risk for adverse birth outcomes among Arab ethnicity mothers,” he stated, back then going by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed.

Claims (25 extracted, 3 hedged)

Left-wing Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is being slammed over a resurfaced Columbia University research paper he authored with a “racist and eugenics outcome” that concluded Arab women should only breed with their own kind for optimal health outcomes. asserted
women → slam → outcomes
El-Sayed — who has repeatedly called himself a physician though he never completed his medical school residency — warned in the 2011 paper published in the “Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health” of the hazards of “interethnic mating” — which he insisted increased the risk of children being born premature. “Our findings suggest that interethnic mating may be associated with increased risk for adverse birth outcomes among Arab ethnicity mothers,” he stated, back then going by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed. uncertain
he → call → Sayed
El-Sayed began the paper, titled “Interethnic mating and risk for preterm birth among Arab American mothers,” with the bold claim that Arab mothers, “a growing ethnic group,” have “systematically better birth outcomes” than white mothers. uncertain
mothers → begin → mothers
He said American Arab women were 16% less likely than white women to give birth prematurely, citing his own research from 2008, while omitting to mention that same study found the gap disappeared after adjusting for maternal and socioeconomic factors. asserted
gap → say → factors
The research, funded in part by NIH grants, concluded that Arab women having children with white men was linked to 18% higher odds of preterm birth — below 37 weeks — and 24% higher odds of late preterm birth — between 34 and 36 weeks — compared to having a child with an Arab father. asserted
women → fund → father
The study found no statistically significant difference in very preterm birth, before 32 weeks, based on whether the father was Arab or white, but didn’t spend much ink dwelling on that finding. asserted
father → find → finding
Critics savaged the paper as pseudoscience. asserted
Critics → savage → pseudoscience
“This is ‘science’ with “a pre-ordained racist & eugenics outcome,” wrote Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) on X. asserted
Cruz → write → X.
Others wondered what the radical Democrat’s real motivation was to even research the topic. asserted
motivation → wonder → topic
Arab mothers who engage in ‘interethnic mating’ have worse birth outcomes than those who mate with Arab men?” ripped John David Haltigan, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham. asserted
Haltigan → engage → Buckingham
Under Sharia law, Muslim men can marry “chaste” Christian or Jewish women, but Muslim women can only marry Muslim men. asserted
women → marry → men
“The father’s ethnicity did not appear to affect pregnancy outcomes when the mother was a non-Arab white woman,” he noted in the paper. asserted
he → appear → paper
The paper also shamed interethnic marriages, saying the researchers found “Arab ethnic mothers engaged in interethnic mating were less likely to be married, had higher maternal ages….were more likely to smoke than their counterparts who mated with Arab fathers.” asserted
who → sham → fathers
He also claimed, “it has been shown that individuals in interracial/interethnic relationships have increased stress….in turn increase risk for adverse birth outcomes.” asserted
individuals → claim → outcomes
For the paper, he looked at data for 617,451 women in Michigan, “the state with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US,” he noted. asserted
he → look → US
He compiled data from the birth records of the State of Michigan’s Department of Community Health, looking at 21,621 Arab women and 594,431 white women who gave birth between 2000 and 2005, using self-reported ancestry to determine ethnicity. asserted
who → compile → ethnicity
El-Sayed, 41, who argued throughout the paper against “racial heterogeneity,” is the product of Egyptian parents. But he married a non-Arab woman. asserted
he → argue → woman
They tied the knot in 2006 and had their first child in 2018. asserted
They → tie → 2018
They have two daughters. asserted
They → have → daughters
“So he, an Arab man, can mate interracially, no problem, but Arab women, in his scientific opinion, it seems, are better off staying within their own tribes,” slammed writer Katya Sedgwick on X. “El Sayed exhibits great many third world attitudes that are repressive, violent, and incompatible with our way of life. asserted
that → mate → life
At the time of his marriage, El-Sayed boasted that the couple was required under Islamic law to live separately for a year without consummating their union. asserted
couple → boast → union
“The interesting thing about the Muslim perspective is that it’s a lot more serious,” he told The Michigan Daily in 2006. asserted
he → ’ → 2006
El-Sayed, who is campaigning to become the first Muslim senator in US history, suggested at the end of the paper future researchers may want to “consider the effects of interethnic mating on risk for other adverse birth outcomes,” including neonatal mortality and birth defects. uncertain
researchers → campaign → mortality
Other research he conducted at Columbia followed the same theme, including one where he looked at “ethnic inequalities in mortality.” asserted
he → conduct → mortality
He withdrew his medical school residency application before he would’ve started it, to pursue public health instead. asserted
he → withdraw → health
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