(The Center Square) — A group of Pro-Palestinian protesters is suing Columbia University, claiming the elite school "unlawfully imprisoned" and "assaulted" students during anti-Israel demonstrations last year.
In the class action lawsuit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, lawyers for three Columbia students claim that authorities responding to a protest in the school's Butler Library in May 2025 violated their plaintiffs’ constitutional rights by detaining them during the protests, and claim they were also "beaten" by officers.
The lawsuit alleges that the students were participating in a "teach-in" to talk about Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian teacher who was killed by Israeli forces in 2017 and organize efforts to push Columbia to divest its financial holdings from ties to the Israeli military.
The students claim in the legal challenge that they were assaulted by police and later targeted for discipline by school officials. All three of the students either lost scholarships or jobs at the university for participating in the protests, which they claim violate their First Amendment rights.
In a statement, a Columbia spokesperson defended the university's actions and praised the faculty who were named in the lawsuit but didn't address claims that the students were assaulted by officers.
"The Butler Library disruption took place during the final exam reading period. Individuals participating were repeatedly asked for identification and to leave and were warned that they were in violation of our rules and policies," the statement said. "The university cannot tolerate such disruptions to our academic activities."
The lawsuit comes a week after Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil sued Columbia, alleging the school failed to prevent "doxing" and other harassment against him and other members of a pro-Palestinian campus group and retaliated against them.
Khalil was among the key organizers of Columbia University protests last year in response to Israel's war against the terrorist group Hamas, which prompted the NYPD to break up encampments on the campus and arrest dozens of students. He was briefly detained on suspicion of being undocumented was later released.
During the Butler Library protests, about 80 demonstrators — many wearing keffiyehs and masks — were arrested after they occupied the building and clashed with police.
The Trump administration investigated Columbia and other elite schools in February. It froze $400 million in federal grants over the university's "failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment."
The Ivy League school entered into a settlement with the Trump administration requiring the college to pay $200 million to the federal government over a three-year period and $21 million to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to resolve the allegations.
The college has also disciplined dozens of students, including those involved in the Butler library protest, and agreed to a monitor who will ensure compliance with admissions and hiring practices and share details about international students with federal immigration authorities.
Before the settlement, Columbia had already agreed to make reforms to prevent the federal government from pulling back the funds, including overhauling its policies regarding protests and campus security and setting a campus-wide definition of antisemitism.