Mahmoud Khalil sues Columbia — for not protecting pro-Palestinian students from harassment

BS BULLETIN:

Mahmoud Khalil is suing Columbia University, accusing the school of “deliberate indifference” to harassment of pro-Palestinian students.
Khalil claims Columbia failed to stop doxxing while simultaneously surveilling and disciplining Palestinian activists.
He argues Columbia’s actions helped lay the groundwork for his arrest and 104-day detention by immigration authorities.

Columbia University has spent years being hammered over allegations that it failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.

Now Mahmoud Khalil is suing the school with essentially the opposite complaint.

Khalil, the former Columbia graduate student who became the face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign pro-Palestinian campus activists, filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing the university of showing “deliberate indifference” to harassment of Palestinian students and their supporters.

“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students,” Khalil said.

He didn’t stop there.

“For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia,” Khalil said. “Columbia did not care.”

The lawsuit was filed alongside Columbia’s Palestine Working Group and its president, Mohammad Zubairi.

It alleges that students associated with the group faced sustained harassment and doxxing, particularly following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

One of the most visible examples was the infamous “doxxing truck” that drove around Columbia displaying photographs and names of students beneath the words “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.”

Khalil’s lawsuit says Columbia failed to adequately respond to complaints about that campaign and other harassment.

But here’s where the story gets considerably more complicated.

The plaintiffs allege Columbia wasn’t merely indifferent to their complaints.

They say the university was actively scrutinizing them.

The lawsuit accuses Columbia of surveilling pro-Palestinian activists, hiring private investigators to monitor Khalil, characterizing their events as security threats and changing disciplinary procedures in ways designed to suppress criticism of Israel.

Khalil says that atmosphere ultimately contributed to something much bigger.

His arrest.

ICE agents detained Khalil at his Columbia apartment in March 2025 as the Trump administration began targeting foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident, spent 104 days in immigration detention in Louisiana and missed the birth of his first child before a federal judge ordered him released.

His deportation case remains active.

Now Khalil alleges Columbia helped create the conditions that allowed it to happen.

The lawsuit claims the school’s failure to challenge what Khalil calls false information about him “directly led” to his detention and attempted deportation.

Columbia isn’t commenting on the specific allegations while the litigation is pending.

But the university issued a statement saying it is “committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise.”

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, restoration of Khalil’s access to Columbia’s campus and an end to the university’s suspension of the Palestine Working Group.

It also lands amid an extraordinary reversal of accusations surrounding Columbia.

For years, Jewish students and federal officials accused the university of failing to adequately address antisemitism during the Gaza protests.

The Trump administration eventually pulled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, and Columbia later reached a $200 million settlement with the government while agreeing to major policy changes.

Now one of the most recognizable figures from those very protests is making his own argument:

Columbia didn’t protect the protesters.