UC Berkeley protest joins fight to release detained Columbia activist amid funding cuts threats

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- On Monday there were at least two protests across the country amid strong reaction to the detainment of a Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist.

The protests come as the Department of Education threatens funding cuts to dozens of universities in the U.S., including in the Bay Area.

Crowds took to the streets of New York City to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist.

"This is the scariest thing on the First Amendment I've seen from the federal government in many many years," UC Law San Francisco Professor Matt Coles said. "I mean the only reason they detained this kid is because he took part in organizing demonstrations last year."

MORE: Judge temporarily blocks deportation of NYC pro-Palestinian activist, Columbia grad arrested by ICE

Khalil was arrested Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who according to his attorney, said they were acting on a State Department order to revoke his green card.

A small group rallied for Khalil on the UC Berkeley campus Monday.

"This is going to have a chilling effect on immigrant students, they'll be afraid if they express their First Amendment rights to dissent, they'll have to worry about being deported," Professor Robert Cohen of NYU said

Khalil's arrest comes just days after the Trump Administration canceled $400 million worth of grants and contracts to Columbia University for what has been called, "harassment of Jewish students."

Coles doesn't believe that the $400 million cut will hold up in court.

"The President does not have the authority to do a cutoff with anybody, he has the authority to start an investigation," he said.

MORE: CAIR labels Stanford a 'hostile campus' for stance on pro-Palestinian protests

The US Department of Education has also now sent out letters to 60 colleges under investigation for Title VI violations, including UC Berkeley and Stanford. The letter demands they protect Jewish students on campus from harassment and discrimination, or risk federal funding.

Both professors ABC7 spoke with questioned the intent of actually stopping antisemitism.

"This goes back, it's old right-wing playbook," Cohen said. "They loath the university as the center of wokeness and they are doing whatever they can to strike back at it... I'm Jewish so I feel like it's so sad to see something as serious as this trivialized like this, like using it as a lever to try and pressure and attack the liberal university instead of taking it as a serious issue on its own."

Now it will be up to the schools to decide if they either push back on possible funding cuts or work at restricting future rallies.