Faculty and staff at Columbia, Tufts and Georgetown Universities launch Campus Vigils for Abducted Students 05.05.2025

Professors and staff members at three universities whose students have been abducted by the Trump administration held simultaneous vigils to call for their release, and say they will do so weekly until every abductee comes home.

New York City, Washington, DC, and Somerville, MA – Students may be taking final exams and heading home for the summer, but today more than sixty professors and staff members at Columbia University assembled silently for an hour in the rain, holding photographs of Palestinian Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, Indian Georgetown postdoc Badar Khan Suri, and Turkish Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, who have spent two months in DHS custody as the Trump administration seeks to deport them for their political beliefs and speech. Faculty at Tufts and Georgetown held simultaneous vigils on their campuses.

“We will not allow our communities to forget that members of our communities have been made into political prisoners by the Trump regime for speaking about the plight of Palestinians,” said Columbia University Associate Professor of Classics Joseph Howley. Tufts Faculty gathered in front of Tisch Library, while Georgetown Faculty assembled in Georgetown’s Red Square. At Columbia, black-clad professors and staff stood silently in the center of Columbia’s campus. Faculty at each school displayed photographs of all three detained students.

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