California professor sues university over suspension for online comments on Gaza
A professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco filed a lawsuit Wednesday, alleging that the university violated her freedom of speech by suspending her for her online comments on Israel’s war in Gaza, according to court documents.
Rupa Marya’s social media posts included expressing “solidarity with the hospitals and healthcare workers that Israel was attacking in Gaza,” according to court documents.
The complaint stated that Marya “felt an obligation to speak out and did so using her X account.”
Israel’s war in Gaza has left more than 52,000 people dead since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 people hostage. Israel has received intense criticism from around the world, including from the United Nations, for its actions in Gaza.
“Firing Dr. Marya doesn’t only violate her right to free speech, it threatens all of us,” attorney Mark Kleiman said in a statement. “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.”
Marya was placed on leave in September 2024 and her clinical privileges were suspended by the UCSF Executive Medical Board on Oct. 1. The board called her a “possible imminent danger” and cited social media posts, according to court documents. Her privileges were reinstated on Oct. 15.
According to court documents, Marya received “rape and death threats” as well as “repeated harassment and threats” because of her posts, according to court documents.
Before her suspension, Marya had several interactions with the university regarding her online activity.
In November 2023, the dean of UCSF’s School of Medicine notified Marya that the school would be assessing whether her social media activity violated university policies.
In response to one of Marya’s social media threads that went viral in January 2024, UCSF posted a statement regarding a circulating ‘conspiracy theory.’
“Although the statement did not name Dr. Marya, Dr. Robert Wachter acknowledged in an email that it was in direct response referring to Dr. Marya’s social media thread from January 2,” the complaint claimed. “UCSF’s January 6 statement accused Dr. Marya of promoting a ‘racist’ and ‘antisemitic’ ‘conspiracy theory.’”
According to court documents, Marya’s posts “never impeded the performance of her duties as a physician or faculty member, or the regular operation of the University.”
“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,” the complaint reads. “Her posts take aim at state policy and supremacist political ideologies, not at any religious or ethnic group.”
A spokesperson for the University of California, San Francisco said that because of privacy laws, the school is unable to comment on the lawsuit.
Marya completed her residency in internal medicine at the University of California at San Francisco in 2007, was subsequently offered employment and joined the faculty. For the past five years, however, Marya had no teaching duties and focused exclusively on patient care in the non-teaching hospital medicine services, according to court documents.
Marya was also appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the Healthy California for All Commission in 2021, an initiative to advance a system for universal healthcare in the state.