For Mark Lance, an emeritus professor in philosophy and justice and peace studies, Mahmoud Khalil’s detainment by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is just the latest example of the Trump administration infringing on freedom of expression. Khalil, who completed a master’s degree at Columbia University in December, is a Palestinian activist, a legal resident of the U.S., and married to a U.S. citizen. Federal agents detained him on Saturday.
“We’re here today, specifically on Georgetown’s campus in the capital of the United States, to say that we will not obey, that we will resist, that we will remain steadfast in our support for brave students who believe in justice,” Lance said to community members at a protest in Red Square calling for Khalil’s release Tuesday. “We demand that ICE be banned, not just from Georgetown, but from all campuses.”
More than 100 students, faculty, and staff attended the March 11 walkout to protest Khalil’s detention, organized by Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and Zeytoun, a graduate student organization advocating for decolonization in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa. Protesters chanted “Free Mahmoud Khalil” and “ICE off our campuses!” as passersby rushed through the sunny Red Square to class.
Photo by Connor Martin
Khalil was one of the most visible activists in the Pro-Palestine protests last spring at Columbia, which were part of a wave of protests at colleges across the country, including at George Washington University, where some Georgetown students participated.
In Columbia’s protests, Khalil served as a student negotiator—a role that had him speaking frequently with university officials and the press. In December, he was among the pro-Palestinian activists investigated by a new disciplinary body at Columbia University focused on harassment and discrimination complaints, and the university threatened to put a hold on his transcript and block him from graduating until he appealed the decision through a lawyer, Khalil told the AP.
ICE arrested Khalil on March 8 in his Columbia University-owned apartment and has since been held in a detention facility in Louisiana. The Trump administration has called for Khalil to be deported, but on Monday, a federal judge in New York issued an order preventing his deportation.
Khalil’s arrest followed President Trump’s executive order calling for a government response to antisemitism on college campuses, with promises to “Deport Hamas Sympathizers and Revoke Student Visas.” Activists and legal aid foundations argue that the order brands virtually all speech critical of Israel as anti-Jewish and targets pro-Palestine student activists.
Lance contextualized Khalil’s detention within the Trump administration’s broader attacks on academic freedom, including its campaign to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; its erasure of LGBTQ+-related words in government documents; and its letter ordering universities to remove any “race-based preferences” in their policies.
“We stand against apartheid, against genocide, in solidarity with gender and sexual minorities, with immigrants, with protesters, with Arabs and Muslims, with anyone attacked by this regime,” Lance said in a speech.
Fida Adely, a professor in the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, said in a speech that Khalil faced threats, doxxing, and harassment for his role in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia last spring. Adely said Columbia did not protect Khalil’s rights in the face of these repeated harms.
“The level of threats got so bad for Khalil that he implored his university to protect and defend him,” Adely said.
Photo by Connor Martin
According to emails obtained by Zeteo, Khalil appealed to Columbia for protection one day before ICE entered his apartment.
“I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home,” he wrote to Columbia’s Interim President Katrina Armstrong on Friday, March 7. “I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”
Khalil’s March 7 email came after an earlier Jan. 31 email in which he urged the school to take action to protect international students facing doxing, harassment, and possible deportation in retaliation for the lawful exercise of free speech.
On Saturday, Columbia students circulated posts about the presence of ICE around campus dormitories on social media. According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, campus housing security officers received notice of ICE presence surrounding campus from supervisors, sparking rumors that ICE’s presence was requested. In a letter posted online Monday, Armstrong wrote that claims that any Columbia officials requested ICE’s presence in the area were false.
Adely sharply criticized Armstrong’s letter.
“In an egregious abdication of their responsibility to protect academic freedom, the president of Columbia University wrote a letter that basically capitulated to this McCarthyistic witch hunt and promised to do better in suppressing student dissent,” Adely said in her speech on Tuesday.
Adely told the Voice that the walkout was intended to show support for students afraid to speak out amid the Trump administration’s promise to deport more pro-Palestine activists.
“We definitely wanted to show solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder who’s now being threatened with deportation. But also we want to show solidarity with our students,” Adely said. “Those of us who can speak and are not threatened need to be out here speaking, need to be out here voicing, defending our rights, our academic freedom, and our basic civil liberties.”
Adely continued in her interview that the suppression of pro-Palestine speech facilitates the suppression of other forms of expression.
“Now these tools are being turned against DEI, being turned against women and gender studies. We cannot be silent, right? Universities have a huge responsibility and for the most part, universities are not living up to that responsibility,” Adely said.
Speakers called on Georgetown to stand against any attempts to bar students’ freedom of speech.
“We also call on Georgetown to resist the pressure of outside organizations that relentlessly lobby the university to censor and shut down speech that they disagree with,” Adely said. “We must protect our vulnerable amongst us, we must protect our values, and the mission as a Jesuit university committed to knowledge that does justice, and we will persist in our struggle for justice in Palestine,” Adely said.
Some speakers also called for Georgetown to divest from corporations that support the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, which a UN Special Committee stated have been “consistent with characteristics of genocide.”
“We call on Georgetown to divest itself from companies complicit in human rights violations,” Lance said.
Georgetown currently holds over $55 million in investments in Alphabet and Amazon, which are both involved in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing deal with the Israeli military. The Israeli military uses the technology to surveil Palestinians.
Chloe Daikh (MAAS ’26), who spoke at the rally on behalf of Zeytoun, encouraged students born in the U.S. to show solidarity with their international peers who may be facing uncertainty over their future for engaging in protests.
“I’m speaking today because as a U.S. citizen, I do not face the highest level of threat to access to education or deportation. Now is the time for my fellow domestic students to educate ourselves and take action to protect our peers who do not have the same protection,” Daikh said in a speech.
Photo by Connor Martin
Daikh also emphasized that Georgetown should act by its mission as a Jesuit university by protecting students’ right to protest.
“As a Jesuit university, one of our core values is cura personalis, to care for the whole person,” Daikh said. “We are not cared for if we are expected to relegate our critiques of oppression and genocide to the classroom. We cannot be people in service of others when we fear arrest or deportation for speaking out about injustice.”
