Columbia University doctoral student Ranjani Srinivasan breaks her silence on why she fled to Canada
The Columbia University student who fled the country shortly after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came to her door last week is speaking out.
Ranjani Srinivasan flew to Canada in the days following the detention of recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil. She is disputing allegations that she advocated for violence and terrorism.
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"I have done nothing wrong"
Srinivasan, 37, is sharing why she left her Columbia apartment and boarded a plane out of LaGuardia Airport last week. The doctoral student says days earlier she learned her student visa was revoked, and immigration agents visited her without a warrant.
"That I would be detained indefinitely. That was really my greatest fear, and with little legal recourse to fight anything that they throw at me," Srinivasan said.
She sat down with Lilia Luciano in an interview that will air on CBS Mornings on Tuesday.
Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the citizen of India and Fulbright Scholar was involved in activities supporting Hamas.
"I have done nothing wrong and I was unsure why they were sort of persecuting me," Srinivasan said.
Her lawyers say she was mistakenly detained while trying to get into her apartment near last year's Hamilton Hall takeover. Other than that, they say she attended a handful of protests and had shared or liked social media posts related to Palestinians in Gaza.
President Trump's threats against Columbia
This all comes as President Trump is threatening to pull all federal funding from Columbia unless certain conditions are met.
Columbia has a Wednesday deadline to respond to a letter the Trump administration sent last week that outlines multiple steps the school needs to take, including a mask ban, reforming admissions practices and adopting a definition of antisemitism.
"We applaud the current administration. If you can't define something, how in the world can you fight it and fix it essentially?" said Liora Rez, founder and executive director of Stop Antisemitism.
"The federal government can't bully people with dollars"
However, attorney Jeremy Rosenthal says it's unconstitutional for the administration to withhold all federal funding, even though in its letter it says it can because the school is violating the Title 6 Civil Rights Act.
"Title 6 is Congress. It's not the executive," Rosenthal said. "The federal government can't bully people with dollars for them to give up constitutional rights. We can't start denying cancer research because of how Columbia defines antisemitism."
Columbia University declined to comment.
