We Stand with Mohsen Mahdawi

The national AAUP and the Columbia University chapter of the AAUP issued the following statement.

Yesterday, a federal appeals panel reversed a lower court decision ordering the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University graduate student and legal permanent resident of the US who was detained at his citizenship interview and held for more than two weeks in retaliation for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. The ruling from the second US circuit court of appeals overturned an April 2025 decision by a federal judge in Vermont, which ordered that Mahdawi be released on bail and rightly compared the government's efforts to expel him and other activists to McCarthyist repression. The appeals court did not reach the merits of Mahdawi's First Amendment claims, instead concluding that those claims must proceed first through the immigration process-a ruling that nevertheless makes it substantially more difficult for individuals alleging retaliation for protected speech to obtain timely judicial review.

Yesterday's decision is misguided and dangerous, not just for Mahdawi but for all noncitizens being targeted by the Trump administration. And the administration's campaign against Mahdawi and other international student protesters is part of an unprecedented assault on free speech that does not end with noncitizens or with the topic of Palestine. The administration has claimed unprecedented power to control speech and programs that do not serve its interests. It has targeted both citizen and noncitizen scholars and students who speak their minds about political topics and protect the rights of protesters, as well as those who teach the history of race, administer diversity programs, provide gender-affirming health care, and research climate change, among other things.

Mahdawi's case is not an isolated incident. It reflects a broader effort to use the power of the federal government to narrow the boundaries of permissible teaching, research, and political expression on our campuses. If the government can retaliate against one group because of its views today, the precedent threatens everyone tomorrow.

The AAUP is challenging these broader attacks in federal court because we believe the government cannot use its authority to impose ideological conformity on higher education or punish people for engaging in constitutionally protected expression. Our litigation and Mahdawi's case arise from the same fundamental principle: academic freedom and the First Amendment protect the right to dissent, especially when that dissent is politically unpopular.

The independence of the federal judiciary is essential to protecting those freedoms. Decisions that restrict meaningful judicial review of claims alleging retaliation for protected speech risk weakening one of the Constitution's most important safeguards against executive overreach.

The AAUP stands with our partners in the labor movement and beyond, and with Mohsen Mahdawi and other faculty members, graduate students, and academic workers whose speech the federal government is attempting to censor. An injury to one is an injury to all.