Zohran Mamdani, the New York City Democratic socialist mayoral nominee and current New York State assemblyman, identified himself as both “Black or African American” and “Asian” on college application forms, according to admissions data leaked from Columbia University.
The disclosure follows a major hack that exposed millions of student records and reignited debate over race-based college admissions practices.
The information, obtained by The New York Times, shows Mamdani selected multiple racial categories when applying to Columbia University in 2009.
His father, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, has served on the faculty at Columbia for years and continues to teach there.
Mamdani was not accepted to the Ivy League institution and later attended Bowdoin College in Maine.
Now 33, Mamdani told the Times that he chose those identity markers due to the limited options available on college application forms.
“Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,” he said.
He added that where possible, he also wrote in “Ugandan.”
“The identity boxes are constraining,” he said.
Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents and came to the United States at the age of 7, as previously reported by