Five weeks after being arrested at an appointment he thought was a step toward becoming a U.S. citizen, Mohsen Mahdawi crossed the stage at Columbia University on Monday to cheers and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
It was a moment of happiness for him that the Trump administration had tried hard to prevent. Mr. Mahdawi, a green card holder from the West Bank who had led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia, was detained by immigration officers on April 14 as part of a crackdown on student demonstrators.
Federal judges in recent weeks have freed on bail several of the students detained by immigration police, including Mr. Mahdawi, in a blow to President Trump’s efforts. But the first to be detained, Mahmoud Khalil, who was supposed to receive his graduate diploma from Columbia this week, remains in a Louisiana detention center and will not be at his commencement.
Mr. Mahdawi, 34, received a standing ovation from many of his peers on Monday as he crossed the stage, and held up his hand in a peace sign. He wore a kaffiyeh over his robe, and hugged Lisa Rosen-Metsch, the dean of Columbia’s School of General Studies, as he received his diploma.
While there were no overt protests at the ceremony, the tensions of the past year came up in the speech given by Peter Gorman, a neuroscience student who was the School of General Studies’s valedictorian.
He called on the class to remember that “this is the first time since 1968 that a Columbia graduating class has been reduced by suspension for political protest.” It was also, he said, the first time since 1936 “that the graduating class has been reduced by expulsion for political protest.”
At least four students were not present Monday for that reason, he said. “We ought not to forget,” he added. Mr. Gorman received a standing ovation for his speech.
Mr. Mahdawi spent 16 days in a Vermont prison before a judge ordered his release on bail. Last week, the same judge granted him permission to come to New York to finish his Columbia coursework and to attend his graduation, overruling the government’s argument that he posed a flight risk and should not be permitted to do so.
His presence Monday carried symbolic weight on a campus riven by tensions for nearly two years as pro-Palestinian demonstrations have led to fervent debate about what constitutes antisemitism and what represents legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and its actions in Gaza.
Some Jewish students said they had been subjected to harassment as demonstrators established an encampment and occupied a campus building last spring. Activists involved in the pro-Palestinian movement said they faced unfair punishment for exercising their free speech rights in denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza.
The School of General Studies, which teaches nontraditional undergraduates, also counted among its graduates U.S. military veterans and Israeli students enrolled in a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University. Some graduates wore yellow and white sashes that said “Bring Them Home” in a reference to the hostages still held by Hamas. They received rousing cheers.
“As a General Studies student, you have proved that no barriers can stop you,” Dean Rosen-Metsch told the roughly 800 graduates present. “For all of you graduating today, you are Columbians, now and forever. We have been through a lot together, perhaps more than we anticipated.”
An unofficial alternative graduation ceremony was held Sunday night at an Upper West Side church for Mr. Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students who could not attend graduation. Some 50 people, including several of whom were expelled for their roles in campus protests, were proclaimed the graduating class of “The People’s University for Palestine.”
At that ceremony, Dr. Noor Abdalla, Mr. Khalil’s wife, took the stage in tears, speaking near a chair set up with the cap and gown that he would have worn during graduation.
She said the ceremony marked yet another milestone her husband had missed since his arrest. Last month, he experienced the birth of their son, Deen Khalil, by phone from the detention center in Jena, La.
“Every day since Deen was born, I understand more and more why the struggle matters,” Dr. Abdalla said. “I hope he grows up to be as brave as his father and as brave as every single student here.”
For Mr. Mahdawi, graduation was a moment long coming. He began his undergraduate studies in computer science well over a decade ago in the West Bank, before meeting an American woman and coming to the United States in 2014.
In his years in the United States, he found different ways to deal with the trauma he experienced as friends and family members from his former home in a West Bank refugee camp were killed.
He became a practicing Buddhist, worked with Jewish peace activists on finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and developed deep ties to the rural Vermont community where he moved with his wife before their divorce.
He traveled around the country, giving more than 100 lectures to community groups, synagogues and college students about what it was like to be a displaced Palestinian and how all children deserve peace.
Mr. Mahdawi has not been accused of a crime. Instead, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, argued in a memo that his activities could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process by reinforcing antisemitism, according to a memo that was reviewed by The New York Times. Pro-Palestinian activists deny that their criticism of Israel is antisemitic.
In releasing Mr. Mahdawi on bail, Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford of Federal District Court in Vermont drew parallels between the current political climate and McCarthyism.
“This is not the first time that the nation has seen chilling action by the government intended to shut down debate,” Judge Crawford said.
Mr. Mahdawi emerged from prison defiant. “I am saying it clear and loud, to President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” he said in a news conference on the day of his release.
Even though Mr. Mahdawi’s graduation day came as a momentary victory, the federal case against him continues, and prosecutors are seeking to deport him back to the West Bank.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in a statement earlier this month called him a “terrorist sympathizer and national security threat who does not belong in this country.”
But his supporters call him a bridge-builder, and Judge Crawford ruled that he “presents no danger to his community or to others.”
Anvee Bhutaniand Eryn Davis contributed reporting.
Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City.
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