Ten months before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil in the lobby of his Manhattan apartment building, Columbia University suspended the Palestinian graduate student.

The suspension lasted only one day before Columbia — with an apology from the university president’s office, Khalil later said — rescinded the suspension and dropped the disciplinary charges against him.

“After reviewing our records and reviewing evidence with Columbia University Public Safety, it has been determined to rescind your interim suspension,” wrote Claudia Andrade, an associate vice president with the school’s Center for Student Success and Intervention, in an email obtained by The Intercept. “Good luck on finals and hope you have a wonderful summer.”

Nearly a year later, the ongoing immigration case against Khalil, a green card holder who earned a master’s degree from Columbia in December, has become a national First Amendment battle with the Trump administration.

The arrest of and attempt to deport of Khalil hinged on casting his protest activity at Columbia as inimical to American interests. The Trump administration cited his role as a negotiator for student protesters as a reason for Khalil’s arrest.

According to documents obtained by The Intercept and a previous interview with Khalil, however, at the height of last year’s protests Khalil had faced disciplinary charges for a single day before being cleared of the allegation, having his interim suspension lifted, and receiving an apology from the school administration. The school, according to the documents, found no fault with Khalil that would merit disciplinary action.

An attorney representing Khalil said the charges and abrupt reversal were a common tactic used against student protesters.

“Emails like this one are one of the many types of psychologically damaging things Columbia does regularly to its students,” Amy Greer, Khalil’s attorney, told The Intercept. “It imposes interim measures and then retracts. It adds students to disciplinary cases and then dismisses.”

The Negotiator

Khalil’s brief suspension came as tensions over Columbia’s protests against Israel’s war on Gaza boiled over. Students at the school were at the forefront of a burgeoning movement to erect protest encampments on university grounds. And the Columbia administration was in talks with the students about their demands — particularly divestment from Israel — and how to clear the tent city from campus.

A graduate student active in the protest movement, Khalil served as a lead negotiator in talks over divestment from Israel. While others in the protest movement sometimes covered their faces to conceal their identity, Khalil frequently briefed journalists on the negotiation proceedings without a mask.

On April 29, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia who later resigned in August, announced that the negotiations had failed and the university would not divest from Israel.

That morning, the university handed protesters disciplinary warnings on Columbia letterhead saying that if they didn’t leave the encampment before 2 p.m., they would be suspended, preventing them from completing the spring 2024 semester.

According to Khalil, the university........

© The Intercept