Khalil became one of the most prominent figures in the crackdown targeting pro-Palestinian student protests in the United States during President Donald Trump's administration, after he was arrested by US immigration authorities in March 2025 inside the lobby of his university residence, despite being a legal permanent resident of the country and a green card holder, and without any criminal charges being brought against him.
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The lawsuit, filed by Khalil, the Palestine Action Group at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, and its president, Mohammed Zuberi, in a federal court in Manhattan, accuses Columbia University of violating federal civil rights law by failing to protect students from threats, disclosure of their personal data, and other forms of harassment, allegedly targeting them based on their presumed Arab or Muslim origins or because of their advocacy for Palestinian rights.
Khalil said during a press conference at the university to announce the lawsuit that Columbia had shown "anti-Palestinian prejudice" that he said was ingrained in various departments of the university and supported by its board of trustees.
He added: "We are filing this lawsuit because no student, regardless of their background, should have to go through the hell we experienced at Columbia University all these years."
The university declined to comment on the lawsuit, while a spokeswoman said that providing a university environment where all members of the community feel welcome, supported and safe "is fundamental to our identity as a university," stressing that the university takes this responsibility "very seriously."
Accusations of treating protests as "security risks"
Khalil said he began reporting cases of harassment during the spring semester of 2023, months before the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in October of the same year.
According to the lawsuit, the university did not conduct sufficient investigations into the complaints filed by Khalil and others, but rather treated pro-Palestinian protests as "security risks," and modified its policies in a way that, according to the lawsuit, allowed for the punishment of forms of criticism on campus of Israeli policies or military operations.
The lawsuit accused the university and its officials of failing to respond to reports of harassment, violence, and retaliatory actions, arguing that this exposed members of the Action Group for Palestine to the risk of violence and caused them ongoing harm.
The pro-Palestinian protests in Colombia led to a division within the university, with some students and faculty members expressing their support for the protesters, while others said they felt unsafe or considered some of the protest activities to be anti-Semitic.
The protests that took place in Colombia spread to dozens of American universities, where solidarity camps with the Palestinians were set up in a large number of educational institutions, and their repercussions contributed to the resignation of the former president of Columbia University.
Khalil faces possible deportation
Khalil is an Algerian citizen who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, and was a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
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