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Protesters at UMass Amherst, Harvard show support for Mahmoud Khalil

Khalil, despite being a permanent U.S. resident, has been ordered by the Trump administration to be deported to his birthplace of Syria.

Hoang Phan, an English professor at UMass Amherst, lends his voice with at least 100 other students, faculty members, and residents protesting in front of the "Whitmore Ramp" on Thursday. Matthew J Lee / The Boston Globe

By Emilia Wisniewski

March 14, 2025

2 minutes to read

Protests cropped up at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst Thursday to stand with Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who was arrested last weekend for his role in the university’s protest last year of the war in Gaza.

Khalil, despite being a permanent U.S. resident, has been ordered by the Trump administration to be deported to his birthplace of Syria, raising questions of the move’s legality.

About 100 people, including students, protested at each campus denouncing President Donald Trump’s actions and calling for the universities to divest from companies supporting Israel, according to The Boston Globe.

More than 100 UMass Amherst students, faculty members, and residents protesting in front of the “Whitmore Ramp.” *Matthew J. Lee / The Boston Globe* *– Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff*

At UMass Amherst, the protest started outside the Whitmore Administration Building, and after 45 minutes, dozens of students went to deliver a letter of the students’ demands to Chancellor Javier Reyes, according to the Globe.

Students walked up the stairwell toward Reyes’s office and did not leave until the university’s executive director of environmental health, safety, and emergency management told them the chancellor’s office was closed.

At Harvard, protesters performed a call-and-response chant in front of the Widener Library. They also called out Trump for his cuts to the Department of Education and federal research funding, according to the Globe.

Members of the Harvard University community hold a rally in front of the Widener Library to protest the detainment of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil by ICE authorities. *Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe* *– Brett Phelps for the Boston Globe*

Harvard Law School students also voted Thursday to urge the university to divest its $53.2 billion endowment from “weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine,” according to a statement from Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine.

Out of its 2,000-student population, 842 law students participated in the vote that resulted in 73% in favor of the resolution, according to the statement. This is the second vote from the school’s student body in favor of the divestment.

“The Trump administration’s threats are meant to scare us into submission, but this referendum shows that those efforts only strengthen our solidarity with Palestine,” Irene Ameena, a third-year law student and organizer with Law Students for a Free Palestine, said in the statement.

“We join a long and powerful global tradition of student movements leading fights against authoritarianism and imperial violence.”