The Knight Institute is defending free speech at a school now synonymous with compromising on it The Knight Institute is defending free speech at a school now synonymous with compromising on it When he first learned that federal agents had detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil in the lobby of his university housing complex, Jameel Jaffer knew he was in for a fight. Jaffer is the director of a Columbia-affiliated institute devoted to the defense of the first amendment, and Khalil,