A Doctor Said Israel’s War Is Fueling Health Crises in Gaza. UCSF Fired Her.

A specialist and professor is suing the University of California San Francisco alleging school agents fired her for her advocacy for Palestinian human rights in an attempt to silence her In late May UCSF terminated Rupa Marya following a nine-month suspension from the elite physiological school based on social media posts in which she criticized Israel s genocide in Gaza and questioned how Zionist ideology affects wellbeing care outcomes As a part of her dismissal UCSF administrators will place a letter of censure in Marya s file for years which she noted will likely damage her ability to seek future employment and continue practicing medicine In two free speech complaints filed simultaneously this week in state and federal courts in Alameda County California Marya alleges the school discriminated against her for advocating on behalf of Palestinian Arab and Muslim students and colleagues She stated The Intercept that it s especially fundamental that those who work in medicine feel free to call out the conditions in Gaza where Israel s attacks on hospitals and its blockade on aid have caused a suite of overlapping strength crises prompting a famine vulnerability amid ongoing bombardment It s critical that we have the ability to speak out about this as professionals as wellbeing care workers as citizens and not only of the United States but of the world but also as U S taxpayers whose money is going to fund this genocide Marya explained Her lawsuits seek damages for loss of income and emotional and psychological distress and come at a time when the University of California system has censured multiple faculty and staff members for speaking out about Palestine The University of California and UCSF did not instantly respond to The Intercept s requests for comment The complaints which name as defendants UCSF authorities including the school s Chancellor Sam Hawgood allege that UCSF began to target Marya s advocacy even before she began to speak out about Palestine Marya s scholarship includes research into the impacts of colonialism and structural racism in vitality care The state complaint says her advocacy for her Black or unhoused patients had drawn criticism from particular of her white colleagues who allegedly used racist tropes against Marya a woman of Indian descent and raised in a Sikh household UCSF leadership repeatedly characterized Dr Marya s advocacy for marginalized patients as unprofessional aggressive and harmful the complaints read Such targeting was magnified the complaints argue when Marya began to speak out on social media against Israel s offensive in Gaza following Hamas s October attacks After she criticized the school s silence on the killings of Palestinians in her posts UCSF Provost Catherine Lucey called Marya in for questioning according to the state complaint Marya continued to post about Gaza She posted a viral tweet calling for solidarity with Gaza s medical care workers drawing threats of death and rape Marya notified school bureaucrats including Lucey about the threats asking the school to temporarily remove her personal email and her profile from the school s constituents website the complaints disclosed In the past Lucey and school functionaries had taken similar protective measures amid the Black Lives Matter movement in In this instance however UCSF functionaries ignored Marya s requests Instead Talmadge King Jr the dean of UCSF s School of Medicine emailed Marya informing her that agents would assess whether Marya s social media posts about Gaza had violated university policies the complaints alleged Marya had also stated racist anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian remarks including Islamophobic comments made by her colleagues in school email threads to the school s anti-harassment and discrimination office The cases were closed without any serious investigations the complaints alleged Meanwhile the university went on to highlight controversial pro-Israeli speakers such as Elan Carr a U S Army veteran and CEO of the Israeli American Council an influential pro-Israel lobbying and advocacy group despite complaints from a broad coalition of Jewish Palestinian Arab Muslim LGBTQ students and staff at UCSF Related San Francisco s Biggest Hospital System Don t Talk About Palestine A November review by The Intercept revealed widespread anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli bias across UCSF which runs the biggest hospital system in San Francisco UCSF administrators canceled and censored lectures by health researchers for mentioning wellness impacts on Palestinians under Israel s apartheid system and its assault on Gaza A few doctors were subject to internal investigations after giving talks that mention Palestine One nurse practitioner who had previously volunteered in Gaza was fired earlier this year for wearing a watermelon pin to work And in April UCSF fired Denise Caramagno a therapist and pioneering violence prevention advocate at the school after she spoke out in defense of Marya UCSF isn t the only school in the University of California system accused of stifling pro-Palestine speech A January analysis issued by the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim Racism uncovered similar patterns of bias at UCLA s medicinal school ranging from censoring academic work suppression of speech of students clinical residents and faculty around Palestine and ignoring incidents of racism against Palestinian Arab and Muslim members of campus And in early May UCLA fired a faculty member Eric Martin for taking part in UCLA s pro-Palestine encampment one year earlier the first known faculty firing of its kind across the UC system Marya revealed she hopes her legal fight will help others know they can speak out against Israel s genocide despite ongoing attacks on pro-Palestine speech by both universities and the federal ruling body I m hoping that a legal remedy would push the university for accountability would educate the populace more fully about what s happening where our free speech rights are being violated around the country as we are trying to stand for the right for all people to live in peace Marya explained The Intercept Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent Since Palestinian solidarity encampments erupted on campuses nationwide in the spring of school authorities have punished students and professors with arrests firings suspensions and expulsions amid pressure from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers The Trump administration has only escalated such attacks on universities and colleges over the supposed failure of schools to address reports of antisemitism cutting federal funding at schools such as Columbia and Harvard revoking visas for thousands of international students and abducting pro-Palestinian students and professors The Trump administration now plans to target the University of California system Last week Leo Terrell head of the Justice Department s antisemitism task force narrated Fox News the UC system should expect massive lawsuits in the coming days We are going to go after them where it hurts them financially Terrell mentioned later in the Fox News interview The UC responded by pledging to cooperate with the Trump administration to counter and eradicate antisemitism in all its forms across the system Related Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech Dr Marya s matter fits this pattern that we re seeing across the United States disclosed Wade McMullen a human rights attorney who is a part of Marya s legal band where universities and academic institutions are bowing to pressure from elected leaders whether that s the federal executive or state and local ruling body combined with billionaire donors who sit on the boards of trustees and run these universities to weaponize notions of antisemitism to suppress pro-Palestinian speech and organizing The new complaints nod to the outside pressures on UCSF to quiet its pro-Palestine movement Mentioned in the complaint are social media posts from January in which Marya questioned the impacts of Zionism on vitality care calling it a supremacist racist ideology The posts drew immediate criticism from pro-Israel colleagues and from Democratic California state Sen Scott Wiener who accused her of antisemitism and attacking Jews The complaints allege that Wiener publicly criticized Marya on social media intentionally and maliciously in coordination with others Shortly after his post Canary Mission a pro-Israeli site that doxxes and blacklists academics and students who criticize Israel created a profile on Marya unleashing a flood of defamatory statements hate mail and threats against Dr Marya The Helen Diller Family Foundation UCSF s largest donor gave to Canary Mission in the complaint notes Jaclyn Safier the foundation s president and a member of UCSF s board of directors has since distanced herself from the donation which was handled by her late father Sanford Diller The university responded to the debate by publishing a message across its social media accounts addressing the posts without naming Marya disavowing her statements as a racist conspiracy theory and antisemitic attacks One of the complaints notes that a citizens records request later revealed the announcement was indeed meant to target Marya Wiener the San Francisco-based lawmaker at once thanked UCSF for the message Wiener went on to single Marya out on social media for the September social media post that led to her suspension In a tweet Marya wrote that UCSF students were concerned that a first-year attendee from Israel may have served in the Israeli military in the prior year then demanded How do we address this in our professional ranks Wiener shared Marya s tweet accusing her of evoking an age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish doctors are harming patients Wiener again misrepresented Dr Marya s post on his social media publicly accusing her of wrongdoing and mentioning her employment at UCSF the complaints state The federal complaint called students fears objectively reasonable citing the two Israeli military veterans who sprayed students at Columbia University with a noxious gas last year and an Emory University diagnostic school professor who volunteered with the Israeli military in Gaza after October before resuming classes and practicing medicine at the Atlanta school During her suspension last October the complaints allege Marya s direct supervisor had attempted to solicit one of her colleagues at UCSF to file an development review against Marya to claim that she was posing a threat to individual safety The colleague ultimately declined the request according to the suits In filing the lawsuits Marya and her attorneys disclosed they also seek to uncover any practicable collaboration between the Diller Foundation other donors lawmakers and university leaders in the school s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech The federal complaint asks the court to prevent the University of California from affecting her ability to practice medicine and to bar the school from sharing any comments about Dr Marya based upon anything other than her clinical competence with other hospitals She had originally intended to seek injunctive relief from the courts to prevent her firing but she received a surprise notice for dismissal on May Marya and her attorneys explained the university violated its own bylaws in firing her without a hearing before the school s academic senate Marya mentioned her firing was was largely based on her various social media posts and Substack essays that referenced her advocacy for Palestinians in which she at times called out her colleagues for their advocacy of Israel s genocide in Gaza A few of her Jewish colleagues have responded by accusing her of creating a hostile work setting Marya and her supporters at UCSF who include anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues have dismissed the conflation of anti-Zionism which critiques an ethno-nationalist political ideology with antisemitism Mark Kleiman a member of Marya s legal club mentioned this conflation disenfranchises a vast number of younger Jews healthcare students residents and younger clinical faculty all of whom are terrified of speaking out but certainly have very very strong feelings that what s happening in Gaza is horrendous and is a war crime Related Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Disappeared Into Israeli Detention Marya announced she hoped the lawsuit and her continued advocacy would draw attention back to the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza The real issue is that the entire medical care system in Gaza has been destroyed and medical care workers have been kidnapped and tortured chosen have been raped to death like Dr Adnan Al Bursh who s a professor of orthopedic surgeon surgery in Gaza Marya stated The real issue here is not whether what I declared hurt the feelings of selected people The post A Expert Noted Israel s War Is Fueling Fitness Crises in Gaza UCSF Fired Her appeared first on The Intercept