On March 5, I watched dozens of police officers – invited onto campus by Columbia University’s Barnard College to break up a peaceful sit-in calling for the reversal of expulsions of three pro-Palestine students – trample and slam my classmates to the ground, arresting nine of them

The violent police raid was a new escalation in the administration’s ongoing campaign to quash Palestinian activism on campus under the guise of combating anti-Semitism.

On March 8, the administration escalated further. It allowed the Department of Homeland Security to detain Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil at his university housing in New York, without a judicial warrant, in front of his eight-month pregnant wife.

Mahmoud’s arbitrary detention left many of my well-intentioned American classmates and professors feeling uneasy because it poses an existential threat to the principles of free speech, rule of law, and respect for human rights that form the cornerstone of their identity as citizens in an American democracy.

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But for us Palestinians in the United States, there is nothing surprising about the way Mahmoud is being treated. Many of us have already lost employment, access to education and social networks for speaking against American presidents bypassing the Leahy Law to ship weapons to the Israeli military – weapons that are used against our families in the occupied territory. We have always understood such principles to be illusory.

When in February Columbia mandated antidiscrimination training to the entire student body, stating that calling someone a Zionist may constitute discriminatory harassment, no one batted an eye. When the school accused a Palestinian undergraduate student of discriminatory harassment over her editorial in the student newspaper calling for divestment from Israel, there was no outcry either.

It hurts to watch those around me now decry Mahmoud’s detainment as an unprecedented attack on free speech, which they have a vested interest to fight against, when their wilful ignorance of the targeted attacks against those of us considered “too vocal” in our criticism of Zionism and Israel laid the groundwork for this current crisis.

On March 11 on the last day of midterms, Department of Homeland Security agents entered two university residences with judicial warrants to search for students who had participated in protests.

I find it insulting that Columbia President Katrina Armstrong claims to be “heartbroken” over these developments while leading an administration that actively criminalises pro-Palestine speech and gives Zionist students and faculty carte blanche to orchestrate social media campaigns calling for deportations of students.

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Even worse are the litany of disingenuous emails that she’s sent out to students regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE’s) presence on campus and her deliberate refusal to acknowledge Mahmoud’s experience or even speak his name.

Every Columbia faculty member and student who spoke up for Palestine came to see the agonising video of Mahmoud’s arrest, captured by his wife, as a warning of what might await us all. With two months until graduation, I – a Palestinian journalist who continues to report on the student movement – now find myself scanning for threats in everyday moments.

I fear each ring of the doorbell or approaching stranger could be law enforcement coming to place me in handcuffs and ship me somewhere judicial sympathy would be unlikely.

I’ve come to recognise Mahmoud’s ordeal as part of Columbia’s broader pattern of making examples of a select few to emotionally terrorise the rest of us against daring to challenge the status quo.

Last week, on the very same day ICE agents entered university residences, Columbia suspended, expelled and revoked the degrees of 22 students who participated in last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment and the Hind’s Hall occupation – two impactful acts of protest that marked the beginning of the administration’s relentless campaign to crush pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

For those of us “fortunate” enough to remain unscathed, threats of disciplinary sanctions are being used as a tool of intimidation – often at times of high academic stress when we are at our most vulnerable.

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During finals week in December, for example, I received notice of a disciplinary hearing without any supporting evidence. The scheduled hearing was eventually dropped a month later due to insufficient evidence. Others have been suspended, only to have those suspensions reversed within the same day.

Scared of losing funding, Columbia sacrificed its integrity and threw its students to the wolves. But it still failed to appease President Donald Trump’s administration – it proceeded to withdraw $400m from the university.

Even after the events of the past few weeks and the nationwide uproar over Mahmoud’s arrest, I do not expect Armstrong to change course or do anything to protect the university and its students. Like her predecessor, I know she too will continue to kowtow to Trump, including accepting his latest ultimatum by March 20. The president’s latest set of demands to Columbia include prohibiting masks; slashing the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department; mandating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism; and overhauling admissions criteria.

I’m ashamed to admit that I have contributed to a media narrative that focuses excessively on fears on US college campuses rather than the courage that Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank demonstrate daily while enduring bombardment, forced starvation, torture, military raids and settler attacks.

Especially as Israel has resumed its genocide in Gaza, with the horrific death toll soaring to over 400 in less than 24 hours, I know the story in all the headlines should be Palestine, not Columbia. But as a student two months away from graduation, the ongoing assault on free speech, rule of law and democracy at Columbia is my daily reality.

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If I must accept these as the conditions under which I’m expected to attend classes and submit assignments – including having to wonder which law enforcement agency, whether the New York Police Department or ICE, will next appear on campus to detain one of us – then I demand that Columbia reimburse me the $81,500 in tuition for what it has falsely advertised as a “premier” education.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.