Mahmoud Khalil announced on Monday that he’s sued Columbia University, accusing the New York City school he attended of a years-long history of anti-Palestinian discrimination, indifference to harassment, and retaliation.
Khalil, a US green card holder of Palestinian descent, was a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) when he was arrested at his university apartment by federal immigration agents in March ۲۰۲۵, the first of a number of foreign nationals that the Trump administration has detained and sought to deport over their pro-Palestinian advocacy.
In a ۶۰-page complaint filed in the southern district of New York, Khalil and members of the SIPA’s Palestine Working Group have now accused the university, its board, and the dean of the school, Keren Yarhi-Milo, of “deliberate indifference” and failure to respond to “severe, persistent, and coordinated harassment” directed towards him and other students who had been outspoken about Palestinian rights.
Khalil, who missed the birth of his first son while in detention, was released in June ۲۰۲۵ but is continuing to fight the administration’s efforts to deport him – a protracted legal battle that is expected to ultimately be decided by the US supreme court.
Still, Khalil has continued to speak out, both about Palestinian rights and about free speech in the US. In July, he sued the Trump administration and several pro-Israel groups, accusing them of conspiring to target him and others as punishment for their advocacy. Separately, he has filed a $۲۰m false imprisonment and malicious prosecution case against the administration and sued them for records of collusion with anti-Palestinian doxxing groups including Canary Mission. In an earlier lawsuit filed in March ۲۰۲۵ he also sought to stop Columbia from releasing student disciplinary records to the House committee on education and the workforce, which has led the charge against universities in the aftermath of Israel’s war in Gaza and widespread campus protests in support of Palestinian rights.
“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students,” Khalil wrote in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“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.”
Khalil also warned of more lawsuits to come. “Next, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on pending litigation but said that “Columbia is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise.”
Columbia students were the first to erect pro-Palestinian encampments on campus in the spring of ۲۰۲۴, inspiring dozens more across the country. The university, once home to cutting-edge scholarship about Palestine, also became the first to be targeted by the Trump administration as part of its ongoing effort to exploit antisemitism accusations to bend universities to its agenda.
As tensions flared on campus after the ۷ October ۲۰۲۳ Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, students repeatedly sought the administration’s support to protect them from doxing campaigns, the complaint alleges. Many had their photos, names, and personal information posted online, as well as on mobile billboard trucks.
Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi, a Columbia graduate and former president of the Palestine Working Group who is also a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, told the Guardian that the litigation is an effort to “force a reckoning within these institutions, so that they may recognize they have ended up on the wrong side of history”.
“For me, this case is about the environment in which the hostility that I and other pro-Palestinian students experienced was able to persist,” echoed Bhavana Bellamkonda, another plaintiff.
“What we are asking for is not special treatment,” she told the Guardian. “We are asking for the same protections that Columbia students are entitled to under state and federal law, and that Columbia itself has represented that it provides to its tuition-paying students.”
Khalil was well known to university administrators because of his efforts to mediate between student protesters and school officials. In the months leading up to his detention, he reported threats, harassment, and doxing, including attacks targeting his immigration status. On ۷ March ۲۰۲۵, a day before his arrest, he emailed Columbia’s then interim president, Katrina Armstrong, and other administrators, urging them to take immediate action to protect international students.
“What Mahmoud Khalil endured for speaking up against the genocide in Gaza was unconscionable. And much of that was at the hands of or enabled by Columbia,” Brittany Finley, one of his attorneys, wrote in a press release. “Columbia knew what was happening on its campus, and it chose indifference over action.”
According to the complaint, rather than address Khalil’s and other students’ concerns, Columbia subjected students to disciplinary proceedings and restrictions, including suspending SIPA’s Palestine Working Group in May ۲۰۲۵ – a suspension that remains in effect.
Other pro-Palestinians students have also sued Columbia over its alleged failure to protect them from a hostile campus environment.
“This didn’t begin with me, nor does it end with me,” Khalil said. “With this lawsuit, we hope to ensure that future generations of Columbia students never have to face this fight.”
