Mohsen Mahdawi on Free Speech, Columbia Administration, and the Student Movement for Palestine
The transcript below is an excerpt from a full 30-minute interview, which can be accessed on the Columbia Political Review YouTube channel. In this interview, Managing Editor Yunseo Kim speaks with Mohsen Mahdawi, a prominent Palestinian activist and Columbia University student, on Columbia’s response to the second Trump administration, the implications of his ongoing legal case for the future of political speech, and the persistence of the student movement for Palestine at large.
Yunseo Kim: I want to begin by revisiting a speech you gave on campus in January 2024, in which you said, quote, “This Friday I received a death threat. If I get murdered or any one of us gets murdered, the whole responsibility falls on Columbia University administration and the deans who support Israel.” In addition to your detention by the federal government, your activity on campus at Columbia has placed you in great personal danger.
Can you tell us more about what drives your advocacy for the Palestinian cause in the face of these risks? In other words, what keeps you going?
Mohsen Mahdawi: What keeps me going is the drive for justice. That drive to see peace, to not see children going through pain and suffering through trauma such as the trauma that I experience. And they lived it through in the refugee camp. That sense that keeps me going. That specific– specific speech, if you remember the circumstances, there was an attack on campus against students, a chemical attack where a number of students were hospitalized. And we have seen the level of injustice that took place here, where the Columbia University administration has discriminated against Palestinians and pro-Palestine students. And the discrimination was so shocking to me, to the point that I thought that there would be further and further and further risks. At that time, I did not imagine that the risk would lead to my detention during my citizenship interview and me spending time in the prison, along with other students as well. But the reality is that we were exposed and put at risk starting from this university. And if I go back to that specific event, what did the university do with the people who actually insulted other students? They ended up doing settlements with them and rewarding them with an around $400,000 settlement, while the students who were hurt and hospitalized were left basically abandoned. And, there was not any level of justice that was brought to them. And some of them were punished later by being suspended. So what drives me is the sense of injustice that I feel, and the drive for injustice. What I felt here is not much different than what I feel about Palestine and what I felt in Palestine.
And they can see the connection between the injustices similar to what MLK has shared, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And that's what keeps me going.
YK: Columbia agreed to pay the federal government more than $220 million to restore $400 million in funding that had been frozen after accusations that the university had failed to prevent antisemitism on campus. As part of that settlement, Columbia codified several federal oversight measures, policies that some critics characterize as forfeiture of academic freedom in an effort to silence pro-Palestinian speech on campus. What do you think of the university's actions and what posture should it adopt with the Trump administration moving forward?
MM: I think not only myself, um, the larger Columbia community are feeling a sense of betrayal, abandonment and and serious disappointment because what the university has done is a capitulation, especially after the Trump administration has came after, and arrested, detained a number of students. And the university has not only abandoned its community, its community in terms of professors and the students, and put them at risk, including we have to keep in mind that we have a significant number of international students, which I think it's close to one third of this, the body of students, over 34,000 students. So now they allowed the Trump administration and the government to actually, create this condition, which is chills of speech, and intimidation, where people are fearful to share their beliefs, what they believe in, and the university by doing so, not only, again, not only abandoned their own community and their own students, but also they have let down other universities that don't have the ability to fight.
We saw what happened with Harvard. Harvard took the case to the courts, and they won the case. Just recently, about a month ago, Columbia could have done the same thing. Instead, what they have done, they have put the whole community at jeopardy! Because now we have an external monitor, who is controlling the curriculum, and watching the curriculum, which is against academic freedom, which is the core principle of this university. If you can't speak freely and debate and be critical of many things, you are actually not doing what a liberal institution should be doing. And when we think of this, the impact of what the university has done is actually on a larger level, leading to the deterioration and destruction of democracy itself.
So, how I feel about it, I see that injustice, if one might say, and the oppression, and the internal systematic discrimination that the university is doing. But I'm not going to focus my energy there because I know the fight is much larger, because now the fight is for democracy in this country, which is a form of justice and for justice for Palestinians and for humanity as a whole.
YK: I'm also interested in how the narratives surrounding this conflict have been communicated to the nation in covering your situation and also the movement for Palestine at Columbia. Is there anything that you think the mainstream media has gotten wrong about the reality on campus, or in Palestine?
MM: Many things, but I would boil it down to three major points. The first one, the mainstream media has failed to show that the movement for Palestine is a mass movement, and that the vast majority of that university here and many other universities, want to see an action done by their universities that's aligned with the principles of human rights and international law and equality and equity.
And that is more than just a dialog. It is a proactive measure, which is divestment from war and investment in peace. And the mainstream media has failed to show that.
The other point, which is very significant, is the importance of the partnership that we have with the Jewish community, that the movement actually had a significant number of the Jewish community part of it.And what the mainstream media has not shown, actually, is that Jews, students and faculty, were a very important and vital part of the movement that was created. The top organizers who were with us, our Jewish organizers.
And the last part, that the media has failed to cover, which is, the painting of the movement as being anti-Semitic. They have failed miserably because the movement had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
And this is something I call gaslighting. Gaslighting the American people and the Jewish communities around them that this is an anti-Semitic movement, while the movement itself is asking for dignity and the freedom and equality of the Palestinian people, and not only the only and not only the Palestinian people: this will apply to all people. So, showing that the movement actually at its core, is advocating for the safety and the equality of all people, Jews and Palestinians, Israelis and Palestinians, and that the fight for the freedom of Palestine, which is the message in the movement, is intertwined with the fight against antisemitism.
YK: And on a more personal note. After graduating from Columbia School of General Studies last semester, you've since started a graduate program here at the School for International and Public Affairs. After everything that's happened, why stay here?
MM: This is a question that has been recurring, and many people are asking me, even the closest to me. And I tell my friends and my community: ‘Don't you get it?’ We are part of a much larger project. There is a reason why the government is targeting Columbia University. Because not only they want to crush any dissent, but also because they realize that a pillar of democracy is the free speech and the ability to express your opinions.
So they are going after anybody who disagrees with them. And we know also that universities are the moral compass of a nation. This is where critical thinking takes place. This is where the intelligent, the best minds of the country go to liberal universities. So I come back here realizing the importance of education and to be in solidarity with my community.
Columbia University is not the senior administration or the board of trustees. It is the students and the professors and the community that is here. And I come back in solidarity with them. And the one that is most personal to me is related to a message that I received from my uncle who was actually murdered when I was 11 years old. And his message was that we Palestinians, after the Nakba, which is the catastrophe 1948, we lost everything. Except our minds and hearts. And his message was that education is hope, and I should invest in my mind and return that love to the people and to the land. So I come back here to study, a master's in international affairs, focusing on conflict resolution and peacemaking, because I believe that education is hope. Education is light and the path to move forward, which is aligned with my purpose in this life, which is elevating the suffering of the Palestinian people and making peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
And this is bringing me closer. Yes. It's bringing me to the middle of this fight again. In the midst of the fire. But I consider myself a firefighter.
YK: And meanwhile, back on campus and across the country, students have expressed feelings of hopelessness in the face of the continued suffering in Gaza. That protests have proven ineffective, or that the costs of political speech in this climate are simply too heavy to bear. What is your response to those who feel the urge to disengage from the movement, or from politics altogether?
MM: I think we might be looking at the feeling of students from different angles, because what I see, actually, I see determination and resilience and strength in resisting this authoritarianism and what is becoming fascism in this country. So, I don't see that the students have given up, or they are in despair because I see the initiatives and the momentum.
They have learned a lot. The state violence that was impacted and imposed on the students has created a level of trauma. We saw with how the police traumatized the students here after the permission of different universities, including Columbia University. But the students have processed that, and they are organizing, and they know that this is a matter about humanity.
Now, this is the government's whole purpose. They wanted to shut down any attempt of dissent or resistance. And I don't think that the student, is—are there yet in terms of, giving up on what's going on. Now also, we see what the government tried to do with myself, with Mahmoud Khalil, with Rümeysa Öztürk, with Khan Suri, and they tried to make an example of us by detaining us in–in an inhumane way and making that an example to deter and to scare and to intimidate other students. But we get free. And many of us became more outspoken, than before our detention. And if this communicates something, it communicates that we will not surrender to fear and intimidation.
This is how I see it. Even though my case now is at a very critical point of its path. Because, if you may be aware of that development of the case, the government is trying to put me back in prison by appealing what is called the habeas corpus. And if they succeed to do that, the impact of this will be so significant that it will impact every non-citizen that they may not be able to practice, their rights in this country, their, First Amendment rights, their constitutional rights. They can be detained unjustly, kept in prison for a long time until, the case makes it to what we call an appellate court through the immigration system.
So we can see that the direction that this country is going in, and which government this government is driving or going towards, and it's very serious and dangerous because I see it as the first step towards taking the rights of the citizens of this country, which we see is happening with journalists in this country, with immigrants and with other people who saw a level of resistance and dissent.
YK: And finally, looking at the bigger picture that you just mentioned, 2025 has been defined as the radical upheaval of almost every norm that has once governed American and international politics. In your opinion, how will this moment in time be remembered and how should it be?
MM: I think in a matter of ten years, this moment will become a lesson to the future generations, to the children. How did humanity triumph over supremacy and fascism?
And we will reflect on the pretext that is being used by the Trump administration and by the Israeli government to justify genocide and to fuel it, and to crush speech and to prevent people from sharing their beliefs and practicing, the most important parts of what make a democracy. I believe–(pause).
I believe that a big part of this education will be looking at ‘Project 2025.’ And so, seeing how things are and showing how things could go wrong, and how fascism and supremacy tried to destroy what we call human rights. And the international order and how humanity, that is fueled with courage and love did actually overcome that and triumphed over fear. How did love triumph over fear?
YK: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today.
MM: And thank you for having me.
YK: And thank you, viewers, for joining us in this conversation today with the Columbia Political Review.