On September 8, 2025, a video shot in Columbia University’s bookstore went viral on X. Over the elegant sounds of Antonio Vivaldi’s “Spring,” it cut between shots of available titles, all of them presumably assigned to students: Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks; a children’s book about the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law; Robert A. Dahl’s How Democratic Is the American Constitution?; and, among others, the Quran. The caption reads: 

Went to the Columbia University bookstore — these are some of the books students are reading this semester. 

A bookstore employee told me the Qur’an is required reading for all freshman [sic]. 

The content creator behind the video was the Free Press staff writer Olivia Reingold, one of the publication’s most prolific contributors. In her influencer-style Instagram reels, she’s made a career of defending Israel and the GOP while attacking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, others on the Left, and anyone else who may dissent from Israel’s policy objectives.