Palak Paneer dispute on US campus ends in $200,000 settlement, round-trip ticket for Indian students: report

A dispute over cooking a palak paneer lunch in a campus microwave escalated into a civil rights lawsuit and a $200,000 settlement, ending the American academic careers of two Indian doctoral students and prompting their return to India, The Indian Express reported.

According to the report, the incident dates back to September 5, 2023, about a year after Aditya Prakash joined the anthropology department at the University of Colorado Boulder as a fully funded doctoral student. While reheating his lunch in a departmental microwave, Prakash said a staff member approached him, complained about the “smell” and told him not to use the microwave. The smell was “pungent,” she said, according to Prakash.

Prakash told The Indian Express that he had not lost his cool and replied firmly: “It’s just food. I’ll heat it up and leave.”

But the matter did not end there. Additionally, in September 2025, following a federal civil rights lawsuit, the University of Colorado Boulder reached a settlement with Prakash and his partner, Urmi Bhacteuryya, also a doctoral student. The university agreed to pay the two students $200,000, grant them master’s degrees and bar them from any future enrollment or employment at the institution. This month, the couple returned to India permanently.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Prakash described the episode as part of “systemic racism”. He said: “The department also refused to grant us the master’s degrees that doctoral students obtain during the course of their doctorate. That’s when we decided to take legal action.”

In the civil lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the couple alleged that after Prakash raised concerns about “discriminatory treatment,” the university “engaged in a pattern of escalating retaliation.”

The lawsuit referenced a departmental dining policy that had a “disproportionate and discriminatory impact on ethnic groups like South Asians,” saying it caused many Indian students to be hesitant to open their lunches in shared spaces. The “discriminatory treatment and continued retaliation,” according to the complaint, caused “emotional distress, mental anguish, and pain and suffering.”

In response to the question, university spokesperson Deborah Mendez-Wilson said, “The university has reached an agreement with the plaintiffs and denies liability. The university has established processes for responding to allegations of discrimination and harassment, and it has adhered to those processes in this matter. CU Boulder remains committed to fostering an inclusive environment for students, faculty and staff.”

Prakash said that after the food-heating incident, he was repeatedly summoned for meetings with head teachers, accused of “putting staff in danger” and filed a complaint with the Office of Student Conduct. Bhacteuryya said she lost her job as a teaching assistant without warning or explanation.

She also said that when she and three other students brought Indian food to campus two days after the incident, they were charged with “inciting a riot.” Those complaints were later dismissed by the Office of Student Conduct, she said.

Prakash, originally from Bhopal, and Bhattacheyya, 35, from Calcutta, are from middle-class backgrounds and have invested heavily in pursuing their doctorates in the US. The first year, he said, was uneventful, with Prakash receiving grants and funding and Bhacteuryya’s research into marital rape being well received.

Everything changed after the microwave episode for Prakash. “My food is my pride. And notions of what smells good or bad to someone are determined by culture,” he said. Recalling an argument that even broccoli was banned because of its smell, Prakash said he responded that context matters. “How many groups of people do you know who face racism because they eat broccoli?

Linking their experience to broader political changes in the United States, Bhacteuryya said: “There is a hardening, a sort of narrowing of empathy. Institutions talk a lot about inclusion, but there is less patience with discomfort, especially if that discomfort comes from immigrants or people of color.” As an international student, she added: “The message wasn’t always explicit, but it was there: you are here conditionally, and you can feel it very quickly. »