Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and other Palestine defenders sued the Ivy League institution in federal court on Monday over what Khalil called “gross and systemic discrimination against Palestinian students.”
After helping lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, Khalil was forcefully arrested by federal immigration officials at his New York City apartment building in March 2025, despite being a lawful permanent resident married to an American. The Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent was detained at various facilities for more than 100 days, missing the birth of his son.
Khalil—one of several university students targeted by the administration since President Donald Trump returned to power last year—has been involved in a series of legal battles since, including his ongoing fight against deportation. The new suit was filed in the Southern District of New York by him, a student group he led, and the organization’s current president, Mohammad Ibrahim Zubairi.
The organization, the Palestine Working Group, was indefinitely suspended from campus last September. The complaint explains that since PWG was formed “at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in 2018, its members have been antagonized and harassed without consequence because of their vocal support of Palestine, perceived shared Arab and/or Muslim ancestry, and status as non-citizens and/or immigrants.”
After the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which has been followed by Israeli forces’ continued genocidal violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, “on-campus harassment and hostility directed towards PWG, its members, and other similarly situated students escalated to an extreme level,” according to the suit.
The filing also says that “defendants’ deliberate indifference towards this harassment enabled the coordinated, persistent doxxing of multiple PWG members, and directly led to Mr. Khalil’s March 8, 2025, illegal detainment and attempted deportation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
Khalil wrote on social media that “we are suing because no student should ever have to go through the hell Columbia put us through all these years,” and suggested there is more to come, pledging that “next, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured.”
The defendants in this case include not only Columbia University and its trustees, but also SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, whom the plaintiffs accuse of using her role “to take several actions that caused the on-campus harassment of and hostility towards Muslim and/or Arab, outwardly pro-Palestine students to notably worsen.”
University spokesperson Samantha Slater declined to comment on the litigation, but gave a general statement to the campus newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, and various other outlets.
“Creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported, and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university. It is also a responsibility we take seriously,” Slater said. “Columbia is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise.”
The lawsuit argues that the defendants violated contractual obligations along with multiple laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and seeks injunctive relief. In addition to ending “discriminatory policies, practices, procedures, or protocols,” PWG and its members want the group allowed back on campus, plus monetary damages.
According to the Spectator, dozens of people gathered at the university’s gates for a Monday press conference during which Khalil, Zubairi, and their attorneys Brittany Finley and William Reynolds announced the suit.
“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students,” said Khalil. “For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia. Columbia did not care.”
“Our safety and well-being did not serve the ideological project its board of trustees was protecting,” he declared—as The Intercept reported Monday that, based on tax filings, as the university “ramped up its crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters over the past three years, the Ivy League institution was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Israel groups,” and “gave little or no such funds to pro-Palestine, Arab, or Muslim groups over the same period.”
While a spokesperson for the school said that “these grants did not come from Columbia’s operating funds and were payments distributed from a donor-advised fund established” in accordance with federal rules, Joseph Howley, a Jewish associate professor of classics at the university, said that “it confirms our worst suspicions since fall of 2023 that pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian politics are the official policy of this institution.”
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