Mistrial declared in case of students charged after Stanford pro-Palestinian protests

Mistrial declared in case of students charged after Stanford pro-Palestinian protests

Kanishka Singh February 18, 2026 1 min read

A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president's office.

The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs. The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.

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Immigration judge rejects Trump effort to deport pro-Palestinian Tufts student

Immigration judge rejects Trump effort to deport pro-Palestinian Tufts student

Nate Raymond  February 13, 2026 1 min read

An immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said on Monday.

Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing
with the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.

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Colleges Are Stuck Between Bad Options for Fighting Hateful Ideas

Colleges Are Stuck Between Bad Options for Fighting Hateful Ideas

Conor Friedersdorf January 28, 2026 1 min read

Pity Chris Summerlin, the dean of students at the University of Florida. He’s being sued by an anti-Semite, and that’s not the worst of his predicament. So far, judges who have ruled on the case have given mixed verdicts on whether he is likely to win or lose at trial.

College deans and administrators keep confronting the same dilemma: They face intense pressure to punish speech that elicits fear or moral disgust on campus. They also have legal obligations—and face countervailing pressure—to refrain from violating the free-speech rights of students. They cannot always do both. The result is cases such as Damsky v. Summerlin—cases that might be avoided under a better approach to fighting anti-Semitism and other hateful ideas.

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Two Takes: Was UC Berkeley right to suspend a lecturer over his pro-Palestinian advocacy?

Two Takes: Was UC Berkeley right to suspend a lecturer over his pro-Palestinian advocacy?

Christopher Kutz, Erwin Chemerinsky January 28, 2026 1 min read

In December, UC Berkeley administrators handed down a six-month suspension without pay to Peyrin Kao, a 26-year-old computer science lecturer, after finding that he had violated university policy by making pro-Palestinian comments to students in a classroom after class and advertising that he was participating in a hunger strike.

We asked two UC Berkeley professors with opposing views, Christopher Kutz and Erwin Chemerinsky, to succinctly lay out their case in support, or in opposition, to the measure.

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Court ruling jeopardizes freedom for pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil

Court ruling jeopardizes freedom for pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil

Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak January 20, 2026 1 min read

A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that released former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the government one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the Palestinian activist.

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional. But in its 2-1 decision, the panel ruled a federal judge in New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter at this time. Federal law requires the case to fully move through the immigration courts first, before Khalil can challenge the decision, they wrote.

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Penn-affiliated groups motion to intervene as defendants in federal antisemitism lawsuit

Penn-affiliated groups motion to intervene as defendants in federal antisemitism lawsuit

Lavanya Mani  January 15, 2026 1 min read

Multiple Penn-affiliated groups filed a motion on Tuesday to intervene as defendants in an ongoing lawsuit filed against the University by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

The lawsuit followed a July 2025 subpoena from the EEOC that required Penn to submit detailed information on workplace antisemitism complaints and membership lists for various Jewish-related campus groups. In November, the agency sued the University for allegedly failing to comply.

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