Ex-Drexel prof known for controversial tweets joins NYU-affiliated institute

A former Drexel University professor known for making controversial remarks on Twitter has joined a political institute affiliated with New York University.

George Ciccariello-Maher, who left his position as an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel late last month, is now a visiting scholar at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, a spokesman for the university said Thursday.

Ciccariello-Maher first announced the new position in a Facebook post last week.

John Beckman, an NYU spokesman, said that the position is an "unpaid affiliation" and that Ciccariello-Maher had not been formally hired by the university.

"Visiting scholars are selected by faculty involved with the institute, and their appointments do not entail classroom or other academic duties," Beckman said in a statement.

The institute is a scholarly consortium of more than 30 schools that is headquartered at NYU and was founded in 1998, according to its website.

Ciccariello-Maher attributed his departure from Drexel to continued threats against him and his family after comments he made over the year's events, including October's mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed nearly five dozen people and injured more than 500.

"This is not a decision I take lightly; however, after nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white-supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable," he said in the statement at the time. "Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking, and organizing."

Drexel placed Ciccariello-Maher on administrative leave in October shortly after he posted that "white people and men are told that they are entitled to everything" a day after 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd of festival-goers along the Las Vegas Strip.

Ciccariello-Maher's online presence first stirred controversy on Christmas Eve 2016, when he wrote on Twitter that all he "wanted" for the holidays was a "white genocide." The comment, which he later called satire, drew attention from right-wing sites like the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and other conservative news outlets.

He also drew ire in March when he said he wanted to "vomit or yell" after seeing a airline passenger give up a first-class seat to a service member.

Ciccariello-Maher did not respond to a request for comment.