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Prominent pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Columbia University, its board of trustees, and a top academic official, alleging widespread institutional racism, hostile treatment, and deliberate indifference toward Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.
The civil lawsuit, submitted in partnership with the student organization Palestine Working Group, accuses university leadership and School of International and Public Affairs Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo of facilitating a hostile educational environment. The legal action seeks court-mandated remedies to prevent future discriminatory acts, reinstate the indefinitely suspended student organization, permit Khalil to return to campus grounds, and award compensatory damages for psychological, emotional, and professional injury.
Khalil, who completed his graduate studies at SIPA and became a key organizer during the 2024 campus anti-war movement, publicly condemned the university's conduct when announcing the filing. He stated that no student should be subjected to the hostile treatment experienced by pro-Palestinian organizers, further asserting that Columbia’s failure to protect its students laid the groundwork for subsequent targeting and deportation attempts by federal authorities.
The Palestine Working Group, which has advocated for Palestinian human rights on campus since its founding in 2018, is a central party to the lawsuit. According to the legal complaint, members of the organization faced severe and coordinated harassment that escalated dramatically following the events of October 7, leaving individuals vulnerable to doxxing campaigns, identity exposure, and explicit personal threats.
The lawsuit asserts that administrative figures acted with deliberate indifference toward these safety concerns, failing to intervene as students perceived to be Arab or Muslim were subjected to systemic vilification. Instead of addressing the escalating intimidation, university officials ultimately issued an indefinite suspension against the Palestine Working Group, barring the student association from conducting formal campus activities.
Columbia University administrators have not yet issued an official response to the newly filed legal claims. The litigation names both the institution at large and Dean Yarhi-Milo directly, identifying administrative decisions within SIPA as central to the discriminatory atmosphere cited in the filing.
The dispute stems from the historic wave of university demonstrations that began at Columbia in April 2024 and quickly expanded across the United States and abroad. Activists erected tent encampments across the university's Manhattan campus, calling on higher education institutions to divest their endowments from corporate entities connected to the Israeli military and demanding an immediate end to the war in Gaza.
As protests intensified, hundreds of university students across the nation faced institutional disciplinary measures and police arrests. At Columbia, law enforcement dismantled initial tent encampments, leading demonstrators to rebuild the protest site. Throughout the standoff, Khalil served as a lead negotiator, representing the student movement in formal discussions with the administration regarding corporate divestment, an initiative the university ultimately rejected.
Tensions culminated in late April 2024 when student demonstrators occupied the historic Hamilton Hall on campus, informally renaming the structure "Hind's Hall" in tribute to Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. Although Khalil did not participate in the building occupation itself, he acted as a mediator between the university administration and student demonstrators inside.
The campus unrest prompted significant political backlash and federal scrutiny. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later announced the cancellation and revocation of visas for hundreds of foreign students and permanent residents who took part in pro-Palestinian advocacy, while the Trump administration threatened institutional funding over the protests.
In March 2025, plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Khalil at his residence. The arrest, captured in a video recorded by his wife—a U.S. citizen who was eight months pregnant at the time—sparked international attention as authorities alleged that his campus advocacy was aligned with Hamas.
Despite holding permanent legal resident status as a green card holder, Khalil was detained by immigration authorities for 104 days. His detention prevented him from being present for the birth of his child before he was eventually freed from custody in June 2025 following legal challenges.
The deportation proceedings against Khalil collapsed late last month when a federal judge issued a ruling in his favor. The court found that the Trump administration had violated the constitutional rights of international students and permanent residents by attempting to deport them as punishment for expressing political criticism of the war in Gaza.
With his deportation blocked by the federal judiciary, Khalil’s new lawsuit shifts legal attention back to Columbia University’s administrative apparatus. The plaintiffs maintain that the school’s punitive measures and failure to safeguard student organizers caused severe reputational, professional, and personal harm that must now be resolved through trial.
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