Pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has filed a lawsuit against Columbia University, arguing that it was indifferent to harassment against him. Khalil was arrested in March 2025 following an executive order targeting antisemitism on university campuses. He was later released in June.
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued an order of removal for Khalil in April, however, after it denied his effort to toss his deportation case.
He announced on September 14 that he was “filing a lawsuit against Columbia University and SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo for their gross and systemic discrimination against Palestinian students at Columbia. I am joined in this action by my friends at the Palestine Working Group.”
“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students. For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia. Columbia did not care. Our safety and our wellbeing did not serve the ideological project its Board of Trustees was protecting, so they traded us away.”
“We are suing because no student should ever have to go through the hell Columbia put us through all these years,” he declared. “I will continue to seek accountability for all the wrongs that were done to me and my peers. Next, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured. Stay tuned.”
According to Khalil’s lawsuit, Columbia University characterized the student organization SIPA Palestine Working Group as a “security risk,” which “directly led to further on-campus harassment against pro-Palestine advocates and students perceived as sharing Arab and/or Muslim ancestry or as being non-citizen immigrants.”
