Accuracy in Media Mentioned in Drop Site News Report on Columbia Lawsuit
September 15, 2026
Mahmoud Khalil Sues Columbia University Over Persistent Anti-Palestinian Discrimination
Areeba Fatima | Sep 15, 2026
Mahmoud Khalil, Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi, and other members of the Palestine Working Group (PWG) at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) filed a federal civil complaint on Monday accusing the university of failing to protect Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students from doxxing and harassment. Columbia suspended PWG—the last remaining named student organization with “Palestine” in its name—in September 2025.
The complaint names SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, who was born in Israel and served in Israeli intelligence during her mandatory military service, claiming she helped contribute to a hostile environment on campus by enacting discriminatory policies and ignoring repeated reports of severe and coordinated harassment against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students as far back as 2019.
Speaking to the press, Khalil said the university hired private investigators to investigate him, a Columbia graduate student, while he led negotiations between protesters and the university administration during the 2024 pro-Palestine campus encampments that called for the university to disclose and divest from Israel. In March 2025, ICE agents abducted Khalil from his campus residence despite his status as a permanent resident. He spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child before he was released in June 2025 by a federal judge who ruled that his arrest and detention likely violated the Constitution. Since then, the university has reached out to him only once—to ask him to leave his campus housing.
“We are suing Columbia because of its blatant disregard for our safety and well-being,” Khalil told Drop Site News. “Columbia put us through hell over the past three years,” Khalil said the university administration joined pro-Israel groups in targeting the Palestinian movement on campus.
The suit is just the latest against Columbia’s administration over its policies around the pro-Palestine student encampments. Last month, a group of Palestinian students and faculty filed a lawsuit against Columbia alleging that the university engaged in “anti-Palestinian discrimination and fostered a hostile learning and work environment.” In February 2025, three students filed a complaint against the school administration for their suspensions related to their pro-Palestine activism on campus, claiming the university violated its own policies during the disciplinary process and that the university targeted the students for their views.