Mahmoud Khalil Sues Columbia University, Alleges School Ignored Harassment Before His 2025 ICE Arrest

Mahmoud Khalil sued Columbia University in federal court in Manhattan on Monday, accusing the school of years of "deliberate indifference" toward harassment of pro-Palestinian students and retaliation against those who spoke up, according to the Guardian, the Associated Press (carried by the LA Times, Breitbart, and WSLS), and ABC News.

Khalil is a former Columbia graduate student and green card holder who became the first foreign national detained by the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian advocacy. ICE agents arrested him at his campus apartment on March 8, 2025. He spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration facility, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release in June 2025, according to the Independent and the AP.

What the lawsuit claims

The complaint, filed alongside Columbia's Palestine Working Group and its president, Mohammad Zubairi, argues the university's inaction "enabled the coordinated, persistent doxxing of multiple PWG members and directly led to Mr. Khalil's" arrest, according to ABC News and Yahoo News, both quoting the filing directly.

The suit says Columbia grew "increasingly complicit in tolerating and fomenting a campus atmosphere that was rife with harassment" during the spring 2024 protests, citing surveillance of students, calls to the NYPD to clear encampments, and disciplinary proceedings the plaintiffs say disproportionately targeted students of Arab or Muslim ancestry.

It also alleges Columbia "refused to correct disinformation" about Khalil while he was in custody, letting "a false narrative about his conduct and role" spread and fuel harassment of other students, per the Independent and the LA Times. Rather than investigate harassment complaints, the lawsuit claims, the university treated pro-Palestinian events as security threats and rewrote disciplinary policy in ways that restricted criticism of the Israeli government.

The complaint names Columbia's board and Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, and seeks a court order restoring Khalil's campus access, lifting the student group's suspension, and unspecified damages to be set at trial.

Khalil's news conference

At a Monday news conference, Khalil went further than the written complaint, according to Breitbart, WSLS, and Anadolu Agency. He said Columbia had banned Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, deployed "a secretive, Gestapo-like office, the Office of Institutional Equity," to intimidate pro-Palestine students, and hired private investigators who questioned him during class about which events he had attended.

"We are suing because no student, regardless of their background, should go through the hell that Columbia put us through over all these years," Khalil said, according to Breitbart and Anadolu.

He called on Columbia President Jennifer Mnookin to "do the right thing and end discrimination against Palestinian students and their allies," per Anadolu Agency, and said he plans additional lawsuits against individuals at the university he holds responsible.

Columbia's response

Columbia declined to comment on the specifics of pending litigation. In a statement provided to multiple outlets, the university said "creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported, and safe is fundamental to who we are as a University," adding that it is "committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise."

That statement doesn't address Khalil's specific claims about the Office of Institutional Equity, the private investigators, or the disciplinary policy changes. Columbia has previously defended its 2024 decisions to call in the NYPD and discipline encampment participants as responses to campus disruption and to separate, well-documented complaints from Jewish students about harassment and antisemitism during the same protests. Those complaints from Jewish students and organizations are not addressed in this lawsuit and are not part of Khalil's claims, but they were part of the same campus climate Columbia was managing at the time. The university's defenders argue its actions cannot be judged in isolation from that pressure.

What's still unresolved

Khalil's underlying immigration case is separate from this lawsuit and still active. The Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final removal order against him in April 2026, which his attorneys are challenging in court, according to ABC News and Yahoo News. A federal appeals court has since blocked his removal while he seeks Supreme Court review, meaning the question of whether he can be deported at all remains before the courts.

Khalil previously sued Columbia in 2025 to block the university from turning over student disciplinary records to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, according to the Guardian and the LA Times. In July, he sued the Trump administration along with several pro-Israel groups, alleging a coordinated effort to target him for his advocacy, per the Guardian.

No trial date has been set in the new case. Columbia has not indicated whether it will move to dismiss the complaint or answer it in court, and the amount of damages Khalil and his co-plaintiffs are seeking has not been specified.