PTI leader Shahbaz Gill fired from US university after harassment complaint

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, the iVerify Pakistan team examined and investigated if PTI leader Shahbaz Gill had any past associations with Columbia University.

Several users were sharing posts on social media platform X on August 18, 2024, claiming that PTI leader Shahbaz Gill was dismissed following a harassment complaint from a student of Columbia University or the country of Colombia. However, he has never had any association with the university and there is no evidence for the alleged development.

Gill served as the spokesperson for the Punjab government during the PTI tenure and as a special assistant to the prime minister. On August 9, 2022, Gill was arrested on sedition charges for allegedly attempting to incite Pakistani army officers to revolt. He now resides in the United States and continues to campaign for the PTI.

HOW IT STARTED

On August 18, an X user, a PML-N supporter based on his past posts and account bio, shared a photo of Gill with the caption, “Shahbaz Gill dismissed from an American university following complaints from a student of Columbia/Colombia. Attempts are being made for an out-of-court settlement to avoid legal action.”

The post gained over 58,000 views.

Azhar Syed, editor-in-chief at paknews.co as per his X bio, also shared a similar post, racking up over 29,000 views. Notably, the link to paknews.co leads to a dead website.

Posts with the same or similar claim were widely shared as can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.

Notably, none of the posts specified whether they were referring to a student of Columbia University or a student from the country of Colombia. They also did not present any other supporting details such as the date of the alleged occurrence.

METHODOLOGY

A fact check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality, the alarming nature of the allegation against the PTI leader who is very publicly active in campaigning for the party in the United States, as well as public interest in the matter.

According to the bio of Gill’s X account, he is a professor at the University of Illinois.

According to a now-defunct profile of his at the university’s Gies College of Business, accessed through an archived link dated September 30, 2022, Gill’s association with the University of Illinois began in 2010.

He began working as the clinical assistant professor of business administration at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus in 2019.

A media repository for the University of Illinois also features a video of Gill introducing himself as a lecturer at the institution.

Meanwhile, a keyword search for “Shahbaz Gill” and “Columbia University” yielded no results and neither did the list of faculty members on Columbia University’s website mention his name.

Furthermore, no news reports were found from any media outlets in the US that mentioned remotely anything similar to a harassment case against Gill by a student from Columbia University or the country of Colombia.

When contacted for a response, Gill said: “Never had an association with Columbia. Fake tweet.”

He also directed to an August 21 post on his X account responding to the PML-N supporter’s post, saying: “If you had googled before concocting the lie, you would have found out that I never worked at Columbia.”

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim regarding PTI leader Shahbaz Gill being dismissed over a harassment complaint from a student of Columbia University or the country of Colombia is false.

No evidence was found for the alleged development in the US press and Gill has never had any association with Columbia University.

Evidence and References

Shahbaz Gill profile at Gies College of Business archived link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220930000309/https://giesbusiness.illinois.edu/profile/shahbaz-gill

University of Illinois introductory video for Shahbaz Gill:
https://perma.cc/X5CX-Z42A

August 21, 2024, Shahbaz Gill X post:
https://perma.cc/3LRS-DZ3S