Dr Rupa Marya, an Indian-American professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has sued the university for suspending her for her social media posts about Israel’s war in Gaza. Marya was placed on leave in September 2024 by the university in a statement that did not name Marya but said that it condemns “tired and racist conspiracy theory” that “Zionist doctors were a threat to Arab, Palestinian, South Asian, Muslim and Black patients, as well as the US healthcare system.”Marya filed a lawsuit saying that she received rape and death threats and repeated harassment and threats because of her posts. She said suspending her violated her right to free speech. “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,” the lawsuit said. “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,”it said.

What did Dr Marya post?

In a September 2024 post, Marya wrote that her students were concerned that a first-year student from Israel may have served in the IDF. She asked if that meant he had participated in the genocide of Palestinians and asked her colleagues what to do about it. Senator Scott Wiener posted Dr Marya’s post and said that Dr Marya was creating a toxic, hostile environment at the USCF by promoting the age-old antisemitic theory that Jewish doctors are harming patients. The post was later deleted. Wiener said this wasn’t the first time Marya has been accused of posting antisemitic content and said the professor has pushed the idea that Jewish doctors harm patients. The senator said she was “targeting a first-year med student for harassment b/c he’s Israeli.”