‘Columbia didn’t care’: Why Mahmoud Khalil is suing his university

“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination against Palestinian students,” Khalil said in a statement emailed to Forbes. “For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia, and Columbia did not care. Our safety and wellbeing did not serve the ideological project its Board of Trustees was protecting, so they traded us away. We are suing because no one should go through the hell Columbia put us through.”

What the lawsuit says

The 60-page case was filed in the southern district of New York. Khalil and other members of SIPA’s Palestine Working Group accuse the university, its board, and the school’s dean, Keren Yarhi-Milo, of ignoring what they call ongoing and organised harassment against students who spoke up for Palestinian rights.

He was released in June 2025, but he is still fighting efforts to deport him a battle expected to end up in the US Supreme Court. That fight now runs alongside this new one, aimed squarely at the institution he once trusted to protect him.

A pattern of legal action

This is not Khalil’s first case. In July, he sued the Trump administration and several pro-Israel groups, saying they worked together to target him and other activists. He has also filed a $20 million claim against the administration for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, and is seeking records that he says show collusion with anti-Palestinian groups such as Canary Mission. Back in March 2025, he tried to stop Columbia from handing over student discipline records to a House committee that has led scrutiny of universities since the Gaza war and the campus protests that followed.

Khalil said the university’s failure to act made him a target. He wrote that Columbia’s leadership cared more about protecting its own reputation than the safety of Palestinian students.

He also said more legal action is likely, adding that he will next turn his attention to individuals at Columbia he holds responsible.

Columbia has not commented on the case directly. A university spokesperson said the school is committed to protecting its community from discrimination and harassment, and to responding quickly when problems are raised.

Columbia students set up the first pro-Palestinian campus camp in spring 2024, and similar protests spread to universities across the country. The school, once known for its Palestinian studies programme, became the first target of the Trump administration’s wider campaign against universities over claims of antisemitism.

The lawsuit claims that after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s war in Gaza, students repeatedly asked Columbia for help against doxxing campaigns. Some students had their names, photos and personal details shared online and even displayed on mobile billboards.

Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi, a Columbia graduate and former head of the Palestine Working Group, is also named in the case. He told The Guardian the lawsuit aims to force universities to admit they got things wrong.

Another plaintiff, Bhavana Bellamkonda, said the case is about the conditions that allowed hostility toward pro-Palestinian students to continue. She said they are not asking for special treatment, only the same protection under the law that Columbia already promises its students.

The warnings he says went unheard

That trusted, go-between role is central to the case. Before his arrest, Khalil had repeatedly reported threats, harassment and doxxing, including attacks on his immigration status. The day before he was detained, he emailed Columbia’s then interim president, Katrina Armstrong, asking for urgent steps to protect international students.

One of his lawyers, Brittany Finley, said Columbia knew what was happening on campus and chose not to act.

According to the lawsuit, instead of addressing student concerns, Columbia brought disciplinary action and restrictions against them, including suspending the Palestine Working Group in May 2025 — a suspension still in place.

Other pro-Palestinian students have filed similar lawsuits against Columbia, accusing it of failing to protect them from a hostile campus environment.

Khalil said the fight did not start with him and should not end with him either. He said the lawsuit is meant to spare future Columbia students the same experience.