Pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil, whom the authorities attempted to deport from the United States after he led a 2024 encampment protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, is suing Columbia University and a dean for “institutional racism” against Palestinian students. Late last month, a federal judge ruled against his deportation, finding that the Trump administration had violated the constitutional rights of international students when it sought to punish them, including Khalil, for criticising Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The lawsuit is being brought in collaboration with the Palestine Working Group (PWG), a student organisation at the university advocating for Palestinian rights, whose activities were indefinitely suspended by the management.
Khalil also claims that “Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students”. The university has not yet responded to the lawsuit. Here’s what we know so far.
Mahmoud Khalil is a Columbia University graduate and one of the faces of the student movement against the genocide in Gaza during the student encampment movement in New York. A series of student protests and encampments swept the US – and later, other countries – in 2024, after starting at Columbia. Protesters called for an end to the genocide and for their universities to divest from investments in companies linked to the Israeli military.
Thousands of students across the US were arrested. Khalil’s activism led to his arrest. The video of his arrest was widely shared online in March 2025, showing him being taken from his home, handcuffed and arrested for activities that were “aligned with Hamas”, the Palestinian group that ran the Gaza Strip, the authorities said.
The video was recorded by his wife, a US citizen, who was eight months’ pregnant at the time. Despite being a green card holder, which made Khalil a legal resident of the US, he was arrested by plainclothes officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was eventually released in June 2025 after 104 days in detention, but missed the birth of his child.
Khalil and the PWG are asking for their suspension by the university to be lifted, for damages to be paid “in amounts to be determined at trial”, for the university to be prevented from taking future discriminatory actions, and to allow Khalil access to the campus again. The complaint against Columbia University, its trustees and SIPA dean Yarhi-Milo also references the “deliberate indifference” and “severe, persistent, and coordinated harassment” of Khalil and PWG members. The complaint states this was “due to their pro-Palestine advocacy and affiliation, their perceived shared ancestry as Arab and/or Muslim students”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
