Graduating Columbia students boo university president who noted Mahmoud Khalil's absence

Activist was due to receive his diploma this week but is in jail facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestine campus protests

Students react as Columbia University's acting president Claire Shipman speaks during the commencement ceremony on the main campus, in Manhattan, on May 21. AP Photo

Columbia University held its graduation ceremony on Wednesday, a year after pro-Palestine protests rocked the New York institution.

Acting university president Claire Shipman gave a commencement speech in which she acknowledged the absence of student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was due to receive his diploma this week but is in a jail facing deportation for his role in the campus protests.

The brief address drew loud boos and chants of “free Palestine” from some graduating students angry that students were not being protected by the university.

Ms Shipman also alluded to the crackdown on foreign students by US President Donald Trump's administration.

Past and present Columbia students and faculty protest against the university's investments in Israel, outside the commencement ceremony on the main campus in New York on May 21. EPA

“We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising this right,” Ms Shipman said.

Campuses across the US last year were the sites of protests against the war in Gaza. Demonstrators demanded an end to the war and their universities' divestment from Israel and Israeli companies.

Mr Khalil, a legal permanent US resident and graduate of Columbia who was a student liaison with the administration during the protests, is being held in an immigration detention centre in Louisiana. Federal immigration authorities denied his request last month for a temporary release from detention to attend the birth of his first child.

An immigration judge ruled this month that the US government can proceed with efforts to deport Mr Khalil, who authorities consider to be a national security risk.

As Ms Shipman spoke, some students walked out while others booed and jeered. The acting president, who took over in late March, received a similarly icy reception during a smaller graduation ceremony on Tuesday.

The protest outside Columbia University's graduation ceremony. EPA

Dozens of people protested across the street from the university's main gates on Wednesday, and at least one person in a blue Columbia graduation robe was detained by New York City police. Other students waiting to receive their diplomas wore keffiyehs and emblazoned their caps with Palestinian flags and pro-Palestine slogans.

Columbia has become a lightning rod for criticism of what Mr Trump and Republicans have called rampant anti-Semitism on university campuses.

The Trump administration froze $400 million in funding for Columbia over claims of anti-Semitism, demanding policy changes at the institution to restore funding, including banning masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest people and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty. Columbia acquiesced to the demands in March.

Some students and faculty have accused Columbia’s leadership of giving in to the Trump administration’s demands at the expense of protecting foreign students.

Speaking before the Senate on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to revoke more visas of students involved in campus pro-Palestine protests. He said the number of students who have lost their visas because of campus protests was “probably under 1,000”.