{"id":616414,"date":"2026-09-15T03:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/616414\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T03:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:26:16","slug":"mahmoud-khalil-sues-columbia-university-over-years-of-alleged-anti-palestinian-discrimination-mahmoud-khalil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/616414\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahmoud Khalil sues Columbia University over years of alleged anti-Palestinian discrimination | Mahmoud Khalil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> announced on Monday that he\u2019s sued Columbia University<\/a>, accusing the New York City school he attended of a years-long history of anti-Palestinian discrimination, indifference to harassment, and retaliation.<\/p>\n

Khalil, a US green card holder of Palestinian descent, was a graduate student at Columbia\u2019s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) when he was arrested at his university apartment by federal immigration agents in March 2025, the first of a number<\/a> of foreign nationals that the Trump administration has detained and sought to deport over their pro-Palestinian advocacy.<\/p>\n

In a 60-page complaint filed in the southern district of New York<\/a>, Khalil and members of the SIPA\u2019s Palestine Working Group have now accused the university, its board, and the dean of the school, Keren Yarhi-Milo, of \u201cdeliberate indifference\u201d and failure to respond to \u201csevere, persistent, and coordinated harassment\u201d directed towards him and other students who had been outspoken about Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

Khalil, who missed the birth<\/a> of his first son while in detention, was released in June 2025 but is continuing to fight the administration\u2019s efforts to deport him \u2013 a protracted legal battle that is expected to ultimately be decided by the US supreme court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, Khalil has continued to speak out, both about Palestinian rights and about free speech in the US. In July, he sued<\/a> 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 $20m<\/a> false imprisonment and malicious prosecution case against the administration and sued them for records<\/a> of collusion with anti-Palestinian doxxing groups including Canary Mission. In an earlier lawsuit filed in March 2025 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\u2019s war in Gaza and widespread campus protests in support of Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cColumbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students,\u201d Khalil wrote in a statement<\/a> announcing the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khalil also warned of more lawsuits to come. \u201cNext, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on pending litigation but said that \u201cColumbia is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Columbia students were the first to erect pro-Palestinian encampments on campus in the spring of 2024, inspiring dozens more across the country. The university, once home<\/a> 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<\/a> to bend universities to its agenda.<\/p>\n

As tensions flared on campus after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel\u2019s subsequent war in Gaza, students repeatedly sought the administration\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cforce a reckoning within these institutions, so that they may recognize they have ended up on the wrong side of history\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, this case is about the environment in which the hostility that I and other pro-Palestinian students experienced was able to persist,\u201d echoed Bhavana Bellamkonda, another plaintiff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are asking for is not special treatment,\u201d she told the Guardian. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 7 March 2025, a day before his arrest, he emailed Columbia\u2019s then interim president, Katrina Armstrong, and other administrators, urging them to take immediate action to protect international students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> endured for speaking up against the genocide in Gaza was unconscionable. And much of that was at the hands of or enabled by Columbia,\u201d Brittany Finley, one of his attorneys, wrote in a press release. \u201cColumbia knew what was happening on its campus, and it chose indifference over action.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the complaint, rather than address Khalil\u2019s and other students\u2019 concerns, Columbia subjected students to disciplinary proceedings and restrictions, including suspending SIPA\u2019s Palestine Working Group in May 2025 \u2013\u00a0a suspension that remains in effect.<\/p>\n

Other pro-Palestinians students have also sued Columbia over its alleged failure to protect them from a hostile campus environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis didn\u2019t begin with me, nor does it end with me,\u201d Khalil said. \u201cWith this lawsuit, we hope to ensure that future generations of Columbia students never have to face this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mahmoud Khalil announced on Monday that he\u2019s sued Columbia University, accusing the New York City school he attended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-616414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}