Arrest of Columbia student protester sends chill across campus, say faculty

The arrest and threatened deportation of a student activist at Columbia University is a threat to free speech on campus and across the U.S., says professor Michael Thaddeus.

“It’s a very dark day in the history of the Republic, when someone can be imprisoned just for exercising their constitutional rights,” the Columbia math professor told As It Happens host Nil Koksal. 

“And it seems to be a nakedly clear case of that.”

Thaddeus is one of several faculty members at the New York school speaking out on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for his role in campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, was arrested without charge at his university-owned apartment on Saturday in front of his pregnant wife, and sent to a detention centre in Louisiana. 

The arrest was sparked by an executive order, signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, vowing to combat what he characterized as antisemitism on campus and deport pro-Palestinian student protesters, who he labelled “Hamas sympathizers.”

What happened?

Khalil, who is of Palestinian origin, came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2022 and became a permanent resident last year.

According to court filings, he completed a master’s degree in public administration in December 2024 and was set to graduate in May. 

He was a prominent member and negotiator for Columbia’s protest movement against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

Trump alleged on social media, without evidence, that Khalil supported the Palestinian militant group Hamas, something the activist’s lawyers vehemently denied. 

When Khalil was first arrested, the officers threatened to revoke his student visa and deport him, his lawyers said. When he corrected them that he, in fact, had a green card, they said they would revoke that instead.  

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation while his lawyers challenge the constitutionality of his arrest.

During Khalil’s first court hearing in New York City on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled the activist must be permitted private phone calls with his lawyers.

One of Khalil’s lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, said his client had been allowed just one call with his legal team from immigration detention in Louisiana, that it was on a line recorded and monitored by the government, and was cut off prematurely.

Brandon Waterman, a lawyer for the government, said he had not been aware of any issues with Khalil’s access to his lawyers but would look into it.

The scene outside the courtroom was tense as hundreds of protesters gathered, holding signs reading “Release Mahmoud Khalil” and chanting “Down, down with deportation, up, up with liberation.”

Funding cuts to Columbia

Meanwhile, back on campus, representatives from the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) met with the university’s interim president Katrina Armstrong.

Thaddeus — who is the vice-president of the Columbia chapter — says he and his colleagues pressed Armstrong to support Khalil, to no avail.

“The university administration has been remarkably silent on the matter of this arrest,” he said.

The reason, he suspects, has to do with money. Already, the Trump administration has suspended $400 million US in federal grants and contracts to Columbia over allegations of antiseminism tied to pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

Thaddeus called the cuts and the arrest a “two-pronged attack” by the Trump administration against Columbia.

“The federal government has a lot of leverage over us,” Thaddeus said.

Nevertheless, he urged the administration, faculty members and students to speak out.

“That leverage is going to be exerted on us no matter what we do, or no matter what we say,” he said. “So we might as well, you know, stand up and have the courage of our convictions.”

Columbia University did not respond to multiple CBC requests for comment.

Other professors and their representatives have also spoken out against Khalil’s arrest and the funding cuts, both of which they say are causing a chill on free speech and academic freedom.

Reinhold Martin, president of the AAUP’s Columbia chapter, said in a statement that the funding cuts have nothing to do with antisemitism, and everything to do with “crushing dissent and privatizing government supported research.”

The AAUP called for Khalil’s immediate release. 

English professor Marianne Hirsch, the child of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Romania, said Khalil’s arrest brought back her “most tormenting childhood nightmares.”

“The illegal detention and threatened deportation of a student, who is a green card holder, has made everyone here unsafe,” Hirsch said at a press conference on Monday.

‘Mahmoud is my rock,’ says wife

Mahmoud’s wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months’ pregnant, released a statement through her husband’s lawyers. They did not disclose her name. 

“Mahmoud is my rock, he is my home, and he is my happy place,” the statement reads.

“For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby. I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world. Please release Mahmoud now.”