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gaza protests
Cornell Students, Professor Sue Trump For Targeting Palestine Defenders
"The First Amendment does not come with a 'Palestine Exception,'" said the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which filed the suit.
Mar 17, 2025
A lawsuit filed Saturday on behalf of two Cornell University graduates students and one professor at the Ivy League school in Upstate New York is challenging what plaintiffs are calling "the Trump administration's unconstitutional campaign against free speech—particularly as it targets international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights."
"The lawsuit seeks a nationwide injunction of executive orders used by the administration to target and deport international students advocating for Palestinian freedom, rights, and liberation under the guise of protecting national security," explained the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which sued on behalf of Ph.D. students Momodou Taal and Sriram Parasurama and professor Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ.
Taal, a British-Gambian national, is facing possible deportation for his pro-Palestine activism on campus. Parasurama was arrested last October for protesting Israel's annihilation of Gaza at a career fair and was subsequently de-enrolled from Cornell and banned from the university's campus in Ithaca, New York for three years. Wa Ngũgĩ is a professor of literature who works with Taal. Parasurama and Wa Ngũgĩ are U.S. citizens.
"Defendants' attempt to bar non-citizens from criticizing the U.S. government, its institutions, American culture, or the government of Israel—and to prohibit citizens from hearing those views—serves no legitimate government interest in preventing terrorism or enforcing immigration laws," the lawsuit states. "The justifications offered are pretextual and dangerous. Criticism of the U.S. government does not constitute terrorism, and criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitism."
Taal said in a statement that "the U.S. government claims to be zealous about free speech—except when it comes to Palestine."
"We've been here before: McCarthyism to civil rights to Vietnam, times when this country has deviated from its stated commitments to free speech," he continued. "This is another generational moment, another hour of reckoning. Why is there a Palestine exception?"
"Only in a dictatorship can the leader jail and banish political opponents for criticizing his administration" Taal added. "A nationwide injunction is therefore necessary while the court considers the merits."
Parasurama said: "These draconian executive orders aim to crack down on those willing to protest against our country's active role in the genocide of the Palestinian people. They are part of a broader moral crisis our nation is grappling with. This lawsuit allows us to recover our basic rights and protect international students like Momodou Taal."
Wa Ngũgĩ said that "I was born in the U.S. but grew up under the [Daniel arap] Moi dictatorship in Kenya in the 1980s. Students and people of conscience in Kenya were being detained, tortured, exiled or killed. My own family experienced the full brunt of this oppressive society. When I moved back to the U.S. in the early 1990s I could not foresee this attempt to chill free speech and directly attack our universities."
The Trump administration has invoked the president's January executive order authorizing the arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's assault on Gaza, which has left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to local and international agencies. Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa.
Last week, immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who helped Gaza protests at Columbia University while he was a graduate student there. Trump called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
Pro-Israel activists played a role in Khalil's arrest. Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists. The group Canary Mission last week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at over 60 colleges and universities including Columbia and Cornell violated federal anti-terrorism laws.
On Monday, ADC legal director and case co-counsel Chris Godshall-Bennett said that "this is one of those times people will look back on and ask what we did."
"We will not stand idly by while the government disappears its political opponents," he continued. "My family fled European antisemitism and came to the United States where our Constitution protects us from tyranny. My Jewish identity won't be used as an excuse to persecute the Palestinian people and its allies without a fight."
"This is one of those times people will look back on and ask what we did."
"Through this litigation, we seek both immediate and long-term relief to protect non-citizens from deportation and citizens from prosecution based on their constitutionally protected speech," Godshall-Bennett added.
Lead plaintiffs' counsel Eric Lee said that "this lawsuit aims to vindicate the rights of all non-citizens and citizens in the U.S., but the courthouse is only one arena in this fight."
"We appeal to the population: Stand up and exercise your First Amendment rights by actively and vigorously opposing the danger of dictatorship," Lee added. "As we prepare to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution next year, recall the words from the Declaration of Independence: 'That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.'"
Pro-Palestine demonstrations continue at Cornell and on campuses across the nation and around the world. Last week, 17 activists led by the group Students for Justice in Palestine were
detained by police after interrupting a Cornell panel on the history of the so-called Israel-Palestine "conflict," whose members included former Israeli foreign minister and alleged war criminal Tzipi Livni.
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80+ Groups Descend on DC Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire, Migrant Rights
"We stand together... to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives," said one protest leader.
Dec 19, 2023
Activists from more than 80 advocacy groups took to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to protest what they called the Israeli genocide in Palestine and "cruel" immigration policies here in the United States.
The demonstrators demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, an end to American military aid for Israel, and protection for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"As the Biden administration and Senate Democrats indicate a willingness to advance cruel immigration proposals in order to pass a spending package that will send billions of dollars to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, we come together as a coalition of immigrant, Palestinian, and allied organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and liberation to categorically oppose all proposals fueling violence against our communities at home and abroad," a joint statement from the groups taking part in Tuesday's demonstration said.
Arrests were reported after hundreds of activists occupied the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where they sang and chanted slogans including "not in our name" and held signs reading "stop arming Israel" and "protect immigrants and asylees."
"I am here because my government is using my taxpayer dollars to carry out a genocide against people who look just like me in Gaza and to keep immigrant families that look just like mine out of this country," explained Saqib Bhatti, co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy.
"We are here to stand up for innocent Palestinians, immigrants, and for the vast majority of the American people who are demanding an end to the bloodshed," Bhatti added. "We need a permanent cease-fire today and to begin the hard work of repairing the damage our billions of dollars in military aid has done to the Palestinian people."
Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, said in a statement that "we stand together, linked arm and arm, to say no to more weapons for Israel's genocide in Gaza, no more money to imprison children and families seeking safety at our border, no more money to destroy lives."
"The Democratic leadership and the Biden administration are failing the people," Tamari added.
Audrey Sasson, executive director of Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, explained that "I am putting my body on the line to demand that Congress stop funding Israeli war crimes in Gaza, and that they reject any proposals for increased militarization on the U.S. border."
"That the war in Gaza is being waged in my name fills me with shame, grief, and rage," Sasson added. "As a Jewish leader watching the Palestinian death toll rise daily, I will not be silent."
The groups' statement decried President Joe Biden's $106 billion "so-called 'national security' supplemental spending package, which would send $14.3 billion in weapons and military funding to Israel to fund its genocidal attacks in Gaza, and nearly $8 billion for deadly enforcement and further militarization of the border."
The activists also noted that "over 8,000 children" are among the nearly 20,000 people killed by Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Palestinians are being killed en masse by the Israeli military and denied access to food, water, shelter, electricity, and medical care in Gaza—a place which has been described as the 'world's largest open-air prison,'" the groups said. "U.S. Border Patrol is holding migrants escaping the conditions created by U.S. imperialism in open-air detention centers at our southern border where they are being deprived food, water, shelter, and medical attention."
The groups' statement continues:
These parallels are not coincidental. We know that our struggle against genocide and militarism in Palestine is the same struggle against militarism here in the U.S. and at our southern border. We see the same technology used by the Israeli military against Palestinians used at our own borders; we see that the Israeli military trains our law enforcement, including [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents; we know that ethnic cleansing and mass displacement will always bring people in need face-to-face with our deadly immigration policies. The decisions to fund these systems are motivated by xenophobia, racism, anti-Blackness, and profit.
"If we allow elected officials to achieve a deal, billions of our taxpayer dollars will fuel war and genocide, and consequently mass displacement abroad, while simultaneously closing the door to asylum and increasing the scale of state violence against our Black, brown, Indigenous, and migrant communities at home," the groups asserted. "We will not allow our communities to be divided and conquered, or to be used as bargaining chips to push through deeply problematic and unpopular military aid."
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Protesters March on NYC Transit Hubs Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire
"We must stand up and not be silent to this injustice," said one rabbi taking part in the demonstration.
Dec 18, 2023
A coordinated wave of demonstrations against what activists called Israel's genocidal war on Gaza targeted New York City transit hubs Monday afternoon, with protesters demanding an immediate cease-fire as heavy Israeli bombardment of the besieged strip pushed the death toll from 73 days of attacks to nearly 20,000.
Protesters marched from Grand Central Station to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and then on to Penn Station, where at least hundreds of activists gave police the slip and occupied Moynihan Hall. Many participants prayed for peace before leaving the station.
"We must stand up and not be silent to this injustice," Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss toldamNewYork Metro outside Grand Central Station. "We hurt and cry with the people who are dying and suffering under the stranglehold of the Zionist occupation. We want the world to know that we hurt because we are Jews, we will not be silent because we are Jews."
Independent photojournalist Katie Smith followed the entire demonstration—which was coordinated by the group Within Our Lifetime—documenting incidents including police "violently engaging with protesters" and a confrontation between the actor Alec Baldwin and activists.
According to Smith, activists later marched to a building in Greenwich Village where a fundraiser for the Israel Defense Forces was reportedly being held.
Monday's actions followed recent protests in New York, including a Manhattan march led by artists remembering the life and work of Refaat Alareer—a Gaza poet and professor killed last week in an Israeli airstrike—and calling on Israel to free political prisoners including the members of Freedom Theater recently arrested in Jenin in the illegally occupied West Bank.
In recent days, large protests for Gaza have also taken place in U.S. cities including Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., as well as in cities in countries including the U.K., Canada, France, Belgium, Norway, and Germany.
In California, workers at Google and allies held a Thursday die-in at the tech giant's San Francisco office "to demand the company stop powering Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza" through the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus cloud computing contract.
More protests are planned for this week, including a nationwide action by Mennonites on Tuesday and a rally by over 80 groups on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. that same day.
Sponsored by the Action Center on Race and Economy, Adalah Justice Project, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Tuesday's D.C. event is being held to "demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and oppose the Biden administration's proposed military aid package sending billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel, U.S. southern border militarization, and immigration enforcement."
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