Columbia University’s acting president has now faced a massive chorus of boos from this year’s graduating class for the second day in a row, receiving a particular wave of anger on Wednesday while noting the absence of Mahmoud Khalil — a student who would have graduated this week if federal immigration agents had not detained him for peacefully protesting on campus against Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza.
Upon stepping to the lectern Tuesday to deliver her graduation speech, acting President Claire Shipman was met with at least a full minute of boos and loud jeering.
“Good morning, Class of 2025. I know that many of you feel some amount of frustration with me, and I know you feel it with the administration,” Shipman said to more boos, captured in videos circulating social media.
“And I know that we have a strong, strong tradition of free speech at this university,” she continued while gesturing to the students. “And I am always open to feedback, which I am getting right now.”
Later in her Tuesday speech, the crowd began chanting “Free Mahmoud,” in reference to the Syrian-born Palestinian who was one of many students and faculty targeted by Columbia for their activism during last year’s nationwide protests against the U.S.-supported war in Gaza. The university faced particular backlash for violently responding to students by bringing New York police on campus to quell the demonstrations, which Khalil helped organize.
Columbia was again embroiled in controversy earlier this year when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Khalil — and, eventually, other foreign students around the U.S. — without charge for his pro-Palestinian activism. Instead of attending Wednesday’s commencement celebration, the graduate student and legal permanent resident is now fighting detention and deportation from an ICE holding center in Louisiana. Khalil has called himself a political prisoner.
“We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising that right,” Shipman said during her commencement address on Wednesday to intensifying boos from the crowd. “Let me also say that I know many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate Mahmoud Khalil.”
Columbia was the first major university to cave to the Trump administration in what critics have called an assault on academic freedom and free speech, implementing the administration’s alarming policy recommendations while ICE agents continue to detain students.
One of those students is Mohsen Mahdawi, who was recently released after ICE detained him at his citizenship interview for protesting with Khalil at Columbia. Mahdawi attended graduation on Tuesday, donning his cap, gown and a Palestinian keffiyeh.
Jake Offenhartz via Associated Press
“I don’t know how they will be able to face me. They let me down as a student, they let me down as a partner who is working on peacemaking and bridge-building, and they let me down as a Palestinian who grieves so many family members,” Mahdawi told CBS News before Tuesday’s ceremony began. “So the message, I don’t know what they will make out of it, but I am here. I’m not going anywhere.”
On the same day Shipman acknowledged Khalil’s absence, the activist’s legal team said that ICE denied him the right to a contact visit with his child, who was born while he was in detention. His wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she flew from New York to Louisiana with their newborn son, Deen, just so Khalil could meet and hold him for the first time.
“I am furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just,” Abdalla said in a statement about the denial, which comes just weeks after ICE prevented Khalil from being physically present to support his wife during childbirth.
“This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse,” said Abdalla, who is a U.S. citizen. “And I cannot ignore the echoes of this pain in the stories of Palestinian families, torn apart by Israeli military prisons and bombs denied dignity, denied life. Our struggle is not isolated. This system is unjust, and we will fight until Mahmoud is home.”
