Just more than four months after being arrested, detained and nearly deported by the Trump administration for his activism, Mohsen Mahdawi, the 34-year-old Palestinian student and US permanent resident, returned to Columbia University on Tuesday and vowed to continue speaking out.
“They have failed to silence me, and in fact, now I am more outspoken than before, and I will continue to work for peace and justice. I do this work not for myself alone – I do this for the future of children, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis,” he told the Guardian on Tuesday in his first interview since stepping back on to campus to begin his graduate studies.
“I feel excited about this phase and I feel victorious that the government has failed to strip me from my education,” Mahdawi added.
Mahdawi, a prominent organizer of last year’s student protests at Columbia against Israel’s war in Gaza, is beginning a master’s degree at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (Sipa), where he said he would be focusing on international diplomacy and security, as well as “peacemaking, conflict resolution and negotiation”.
“My resistance is not to run away,” he said. “It’s easier to distance myself and go somewhere else, [but] I choose to be part of a solution, part of a resistance, and part of envisioning what the future would look like.”
Born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi immigrated to the US over a decade ago and enrolled at Columbia in 2021. His return to the school comes nearly five months after he was detained by federal immigration authorities while attending a naturalization interview in Vermont and ordered to be deported.
Federal officials sought to deport him citing an obscure provision of immigration law that permits the government to revoke the legal status of individuals deemed threats to US foreign policy. He was never charged with a crime.
His lawyers argued that his arrest was retaliatory and “part of a policy intended to silence and chill the speech of those who advocate for Palestinian human rights”. They also said that he took a step back from organizing in March 2024.
Mahdawi’s case quickly gained national attention, as he became one of several international students who were involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy to be detained and placed in deportation proceedings, alarming civil rights and civil liberties advocates who warned that the federal government’s actions marked an unprecedented assault on free speech.
Roughly two weeks after his arrest, a federal judge ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail, pending the resolution of his case. The judge wrote that Mahdawi’s “continued detention would likely have a chilling effect on protected speech”.
The government has appealed that ruling, with the case expected to be heard by the second circuit court of appeals soon. Mahdawi’s deportation case is still ongoing.
Over the summer, Columbia agreed to pay more than $220m to the federal government to reinstate $400m in funding that it pulled after accusing the university of failing to prevent antisemitic harassment on campus.
As part of the settlement, the school also agreed to implement a host of new measures aimed at combatting antisemitism, which critics warn restrict the school’s independence and could suppress pro-Palestinian speech.
“Even though it was expected, it was very disappointing,” Mahdawi said of the Columbia settlement. “I believe that Columbia University administration is participating in the deterioration and destruction of the democratic system in America.”
At Columbia, Mahdawi, a practicing Buddhist, was the president of Columbia’s Buddhist association and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union. According to the New York Times, Mahdawi has delivered more than 100 lectures across religious and academic institutions emphasizing empathy as essential to resolution in the Middle East.
At one 2023 pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia, he was seen on video publicly denouncing someone who made antisemitic and anti-Black statements.
Later that fall, Mahdawi also appeared on 60 Minutes, where he said that “the fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.
Last week, 26 Israeli citizens – many of them Columbia faculty and students – filed an amicus brief in his ongoing case.
In the filing they described Mahdawi as a “bridge-builder” who was the driving force behind an intensive effort to foster dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians on campus and beyond.
“Mohsen has worked tirelessly to build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians in the United States in the hope of planting the seeds for a more peaceful future for both of our peoples in our shared homeland,” they added.
While looking forward to resuming his studies, Mahdawi said that his return was marred by disappointment that he hadn’t received more support from the school after his arrest.
He expressed a sense of “bitterness and disappointment in attending this institution [whose] own administration refused to protect me”.
Still, Mahdawi chose to return to Columbia and pursue his studies, in part due to Sipa’s reputation. The school is consistently ranked among the best for studies in international global policy.
“My whole life is dedicated to bring a just resolution to the Palestinian people and to end the suffering. Coming back to Columbia, especially to Sipa, a school that’s related to this kind of study and work, it puts me in line with my purpose,” he said, adding that he also felt a “strong sense of solidarity with Columbia’s community”.
Sipa has also been a target for protesters; last year students walked out of a lecture delivered by Hillary Clinton. Students also recently protested against an event in which Sipa’s current dean, Keren Yarhi-Milo, an Israeli American former intelligence officer in the Israeli military, interviewed the former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett.
‘I am on my toes’
In May, just over two weeks after his release, Mahdawi crossed the Columbia graduation stage and received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy to a standing ovation.
Wearing a keffiyeh, he bowed and blew a kiss to the crowd before joining a vigil outside campus, where he held up a photo of Mahmoud Khalil, a fellow Columbia student who recently graduated from Sipa, who at the time was in immigration detention. He has since been released.
Despite returning to a more restrictive campus environment, in his view, if he is silent and “unable to continue my activism, my advocacy and my peace building, then I am being complicit in making the world a worse place rather than making it a better place”, he added.
He said he intended to continue to advocate that Columbia divest from companies supporting Israeli military operations and policies in the West Bank and Gaza, a core demand of the student protest movement.
“I’m here to get education, and part of the education is also to educate others,” Mahdawi said. “What I bring with me is a first-hand experience of a Palestinian refugee who was born and raised in a refugee camp whose family is still suffering and his people are still suffering,” he said.
When asked if he fears returning to campus or further repercussions for speaking out, Mahdawi said that he would make sure to “always be on my toes” as “there are many agitators” around, he said.
“Keep in mind that I was in fact doxed by members of Columbia’s community,” he said. “So now I am on my toes.”
Mahdawi said that as he begins this new academic year, he is constantly thinking about what is happening to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
“I am going to campus to continue life and my studies here, while I know that my people don’t have this opportunity because there are no universities left in Gaza, that my people and my family and my siblings and my cousins and those in the West Bank can’t travel easily and live under the apartheid system.” he said. “It’s such a dichotomy of two worlds that I’m connected to.”
