On Thursday afternoon, approximately 200 students gathered on the Main Green to protest the arrest and detainment of Columbia alum and activist Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at Columbia on Saturday.
Khalil is a U.S. permanent resident who received a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs last year. He was a lead student negotiator during Columbia’s 2024 pro-Palestinian protests.
On Jan. 29, President Trump signed an executive order that threatened to deport and revoke visas for international students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. Some of his executive actions have also attempted to restrict immigration and increase deportations.
The protest was organized by Jews for Palestinian Liberation and nine other student activist organizations, including the Brown Divest Coalition, the Palestine Solidarity Caucus, the Brown Dream Team and Students for Educational Equity.
The BDC called on Brown to disclose their current policy regarding campus access for federal authorities. “If a valid subpoena is presented to Brown for any community member’s records, they must commit to challenging the subpoena,” read a statement from a BDC spokesperson who was granted anonymity for fear of retaliation from the federal government.
When asked about how the University plans to support students, Spokesperson Brian Clark pointed to the Frequently Asked Questions page maintained by the Office of Global Engagement on the University’s website. The page addresses questions students may have concerning immigration, “including information about what community members should do if they receive a request for information from a government agency,” he said.
“University leaders and staff continue to provide information and support to members of our community who are directly affected in regard to particular issues,” Clark wrote.
The protestors also requested the University destroy footage of past and future political speech on campus, including security camera footage.
The groups rallied in support of three demands circulated by the Graduate Labor Organization: defending the Brown community from federal immigration authorities, protecting freedom of expression on campus and protecting the safety and health of transgender community members.
“We’re seeing an attack on all fronts,” Rafi Ash ’26, a spokesperson for student group JFPL, said in an interview with The Herald. “These are all fights that are, at this moment more than ever, so clearly intertwined with one another.”
Ash said the moment required a “broad, united front.”
Yosan Alemu GS, a GLO representative, said the organizations came together to “not only meet the demands of this moment,” but to “be on the offensive.”
“Rather than agonizing” over the current political climate, she added, “we organize.”
Rally organizers also expressed concerns about safety while protesting. During the protest, a BDC representative who declined to share their last name, only identifying themselves as Ashe, read a statement prepared by an anonymous group of international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism on campus. The need to maintain anonymity, Ashe said, “speaks volumes to the climate that both Brown and the Trump administration have created on this campus.”
“We write anonymously because the moment demands that we do so,” the international students’ statement read. They also called on the University to increase protections for students.
“Neutrality is impossible as the state invades our campuses,” the statement added.
Over the past year and a half, Brown has been a hub of pro-Palestianian demonstrations. Across two sit-ins in November and December 2023 calling for the University to divest its endowment from companies affiliated with Israel, 61 students were arrested. College Hill has also seen an encampment, hunger strike and other rallies that made similar demands. In October 2024, the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, rejected a student-led divestment proposal.
Ash referenced Brown’s decision to join federal lawsuits on funding cuts, saying the University is “only willing to stand up when it’s their funding on the line.”
In a speech at the rally, Jesse Mathis ’27, a HOPE advocacy lead and the Undergraduate Council of Students’s diversity, equity and inclusion chair, asked whether Brown will “cooperate with federal agencies which seek to undermine our fundamental rights and protections, or stand with its students against oppressive and unjust policies and actions?”
Naoko Shibusawa, an associate professor of history, also spoke at the rally on behalf of Brown Academics for Justice in Palestine. She quoted a 2016 op-ed written by President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 in the Washington Post, which states that Brown is “a safe space for freedom of expression.”
An excerpt of her op-ed was read at the rally: “Freedom of expression is an essential component of academic freedom, which protects the ability of universities to fulfill their core mission of advancing knowledge,” Paxson’s op-ed reads. “Suppressing ideas at a university is akin to turning off the power at a factory.”
In her speech at the rally, Shibusawa called on Paxson to “remember what you said you believed in 2016. Let’s keep the power on.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Annika Singh is a senior staff writer from Singapore who enjoys rewatching Succession and cheating on the NYT crossword.
