The Shift: Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, and a new lawsuit against Columbia

Macklemore has been dropped from the remaining dates of Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour after several venues allegedly declared they would not allow the concerts to take place.

The move comes in response to recent comments the rapper made onstage. During a show at MetLife Stadium earlier this month, he called for free Palestine, condemned Israel’s genocide, performed his campus solidarity anthem“Hind’s Hall,” which celebrates the campus solidarity movement, and showed images of the destruction in Gaza.

This led to attacks from pro-Israel groups, pundits, and even fellow musicians. The pop star Pink shared a post from the anti-Palestine organization StopAntisemitism, insisting that concert goers should receive apologies and refunds for having to endure Macklemore’s “anti-Israel propaganda.”

“As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans,” the tour’s promoter told Rolling Stone in a statement. “After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

In a social media post, Macklemore said that Sheeran told him Robert Kraft, who owns the NFL’s New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, had rallied other stadium owners to prevent Macklemore from continuing the tour. Kraft apparently made the move amid media attention over Pink’s post.

In 2019, Kraft, who built a sports complex in Israel and is a personal friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pledged $20 million for a foundation to fight the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS).

“My vision is to work to end the violence against Jewish communities,” declared Kraft at the time. “To counter the normalization of anti-Semitic narratives that question Israel’s right to exist, disguised as part of legitimate debate on campuses and in the media. To educate, to inform, and to heal inter-communal relations. In combating the scourge of anti-Semitism, my solemn ambition is to counter all forms of intolerance in the spirit of the ancient Jewish value of tikkun olam – to heal and repair the world.”

In his statement on the controversy, Macklemore asserted that Sheeran was put in a tough position and didn’t want to take sides.

“And I get why people don’t,” wrote Macklemore. “Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.”

“Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” said Kraft, in his own statement. “Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”

Multiple acts have dropped off the tour in solidarity with Macklemore, and the rapper has called on Kraft to match a $1 million donation to Palestine.

Kraft says Sheeran asked him to make a $2 million donation to “in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis,” but no further details have been released as of this newsletter’s publication.

Pro-Palestine students sue Columbia

A group of former student activists is suing Columbia University and the Dean of its School of International and Public Affairs for failing to address the harassment they endured as a result of their Palestine advocacy.

Plaintiffs include Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist who was illegally detained by the Trump administration over his involvement in the school’s Gaza solidarity protests.

The lawsuit claims Columbia University’s administration displayed “deliberate indifference” towards the targeted harassment, which led to the doxxing of activists and Khalil’s detainment.

It also claims that the school “refused to correct disinformation” while Khalil was detained for months, which enabled a “false narrative about his conduct and role to persist” and further enable the harassment of “other Palestinian students and students with perceived shared Arab and/or Muslim ancestry.”

“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students. For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia,” tweeted Khalil. “Columbia did not care. Our safety and our wellbeing did not serve the ideological project its Board of Trustees was protecting, so they traded us away.”

“We are suing because no student should ever have to go through the hell Columbia put us through all these years,” he added.

This is the second time Khalil has sued Columbia. In March 2025, he filed a lawsuit challenging the school’s release of private student records to the GOP-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which launched a witch hunt against pro-Palestine student activists across U.S. campuses.