Lawsuit alleges school ignored harassment of pro-Palestinian students
Mahmoud Khalil spoke outside the university’s gates Monday, describing what he said was a pattern of institutional neglect.
“Columbia prioritized the protection and well being of a subset of students while ignoring our concerns and our pleas,” Khalil said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “It eventually created a hostile environment for us, to intimidate us. It said that Palestinian students didn’t matter, that our concerns are unworthy of task forces, of investigations, of any protection.”
A spokesperson for Columbia declined to comment on the pending litigation but said the university “is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment.”
Columbia was the epicenter of the student protests that flared after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and escalated across college campuses the following spring. The university has faced scrutiny over how it responded to the protests and has been accused of failing to protect both pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Jewish students who said they felt unsafe on campus.
The Trump administration in 2025 canceled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia, alleging that it had violated civil-rights laws by ignoring what it called harassment of Jewish students. The university later agreed to pay more than $200 million to the federal government to settle allegations that it violated antidiscrimination laws.
Monday’s suit was filed by Khalil, who played a key role in the protests, along with another former student and a pro-Palestinian student group that was suspended by Columbia last year. The suit said the university routinely ignored harassment complaints from members of that group, even as their names and faces appeared on lists identifying them as “Columbia’s leading antisemites,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Khalil, who is still fighting the government’s efforts to deport him, said the university’s failure to keep him safe from such harassment “directly led” to his March 2025 arrest and attempted deportation.