A professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco is suing the institution, asserting that her freedom of speech was violated when she was suspended following online commentary regarding israel’s war in gaza.

Rupa Marya, an internal medicine physician and professor at UCSF, and identified as an expert in decolonial theory, filed the suit. Marya was placed on leave in september 2024 and had her clinical privileges briefly suspended by the UCSF executive medical board after she made comments on X questioning the impacts of Zionism as “a supremacist, racist ideology” on healthcare.

The university, without directly naming Marya, released a statement across its social media platforms asserting that such comments represented a “tired and racist conspiracy theory” and that the idea that “Zionist doctors were a threat to Arab, Palestinian, South Asian, Muslin and Black patients, and also the US healthcare system” should be condemned.

According to NBC News, Mark Kleiman, Marya’s attorney, stated in the court filing that his client was terminated last month “despite requesting a hearing, which she was entitled to”.

“Firing Dr Marya doesn’t only violate her right to free speech, it threatens all of us,” he said in a statement to the network.

“We all need to urgently speak up against these kinds of attacks on our basic rights to advocate for justice, and we expect the court will agree with us that dr Marya’s rights have been violated and must be remedied.”

Court documents indicate that Marya’s posts “never impeded the performance of her duties as a physician or faculty member, or the regular operation of the university”.

The complaint reads, “As a medical doctor, American citizen and as a person of south Asian descent raised in the Sikh religious tradition, Dr marya has long been concerned about American foreign policy, including in the Middle East and the issues surrounding the conflict between Israel and Palestine.”

“Her posts take aim at state policy and supremacist political ideologies, not at any religious or ethnic group.”

the lawsuit also states that Marya received “rape and death threats” and “repeated harassment and threats” because of her posts. She says her posts also expressed “solidarity with the hospitals and healthcare workers that Israel was attacking in Gaza” and that she “felt an obligation to speak out and did so using her X account”.

In a September 2024 post, Marya wrote on social media that UCSF students were concerned that a frist-year student from Israel may have served in the IDF; she asked “if he participated in the genocide of Palestinians” and asked her colleagues what to do about it.

State senator Scott Wiener responded to the post on X, stating that “the same UCSF professor who promoted the ‘doctors’ plot’ – an age old antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish doctors are harming patients – is now targeting a 1st year med student for harassment b/c he’s Israeli.This professor is creating a toxic, unfriendly environment at UCSF.”

UCSF’s chancellor, Sam Hawgood, said he took “immediate action to address this situation,” adding that “targeting any member of our UCSF community – especially in a way that fosters hostility or discrimination – will not be tolerated”, according to a letter obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

In a March interview with the Guardian, Marya asked: “How do we integrate [Israeli] reservists into the medical community – with [Palestinian] students who have lost 50 or 60 family members? What is the moral obligation of medicine?”

The lawsuit emerges amidst ongoing debate across the US regarding academic freedom on college campuses.

Last week, the Trump management intensified its efforts to compel US universities to crack down on what it considers antisemitic activity. The Department of Education warned New York’s Columbia University it could lose accreditation, and consequently, access to federal grants, due to an alleged violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.

The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services stated last month that Columbia had acted with “deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of Jewish students during campus protests.

It is estimated that Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians and devastated much of the region. Last week, the Guardian reported that on Sunday at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire near a food distribution center in Rafah, Gaza. A separate incident at the same site on Monday resulted in three fatalities.

International criticism has grown regarding a new aid distribution system in Gaza,managed by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF),rather than UN or international aid organizations.

The UN’s human rights chief, volker Türk, stated that Palestinians in Gaza face an unachievable choice: “Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.” He added that the attacks on civilians constituted a war crime.