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Mr. Mahdawi, who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, was released from detention late last month and allowed to travel from Vermont to get his diploma.
May 19, 2025Updated 1:08 p.m. ET
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.”
