March 19th, 2025

We, the alumni of Columbia University and Barnard College, unequivocally condemn our alma mater’s collaboration with ICE to detain Mahmoud Khalil, and condemn the University’s decisions to capitulate to the Trump administration’s attacks on campus activism, free speech, and higher education. Since Mahmoud’s detention, DHS has visited campus again, seeking to arrest more student activists. Indeed, shortly after, DHS arrested and detained Leqaa Kordia, and the Trump administration revoked the visa of Ranjani Srinivasan.

Mahmoud’s detention represents a dangerous escalation in the state’s crusade against constitutionally protected speech and academic freedom. This cannot be divorced from the University’s relentless targeting and suppression of student activists and speech in support of Palestinian life and freedom. Columbia has summarily suspended and expelled students, effectively fired tenured faculty, and called the police onto campus multiple times to brutalize and arrest its students. Columbia has chosen to disavow the most basic function of a university rather than disclose its investments in companies that sustain Israel’s military occupation of Palestine.

Columbia has forsaken its duty to protect academic freedom and created a grave existential crisis for all institutions of higher learning. By continuing to bow to fascist provocateurs and right-wing donors, Columbia has placed a target on the back of every student, staff, and faculty member speaking out against the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Most importantly, Columbia’s actions have made countless students vulnerable to abductions ordered by the White House and critically undermined our most fundamental rights to free speech without fear of persecution or incarceration.

We demand that Columbia and Barnard: