Emory University saw a clampdown on campus protests against Israel’s war in 2024 [Getty]
A Palestinian-American student was suspended from her studies at Emory University in Atlanta, US after she highlighted the fact that a professor in her faculty had served as a medic in the Israeli army, The Guardian reported on Monday.
Umaymah Mohammad, 28, made the remarks in an interview with left-leaning US news website Democracy Now! in April 2024, amid a spring campus season that saw colleges across the US embroiled by tensions between anti-war activists and campus authorities. A day before the interview, campus authorities called the Atlanta police to deal with students who had encamped to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.
In the appearance, Mohammad did not name the professor, who she said had “participated in aiding and abetting a genocide, in aiding and abetting the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza and the murder of over 400 healthcare workers, and is now back at Emory so-called ‘teaching’ medical students and residents how to take care of patients”.
The professor filed a complaint, and an internal investigation concluded in July, where it was determined that Mohammad, who was concurrently pursuing a medical degree and a PhD in psychology, had violated the university’s “professionalism” and “mutual respect” codes.
The verdict prompted an intervention by Emory’s committee for open expression, whose chair Ilya Nemenman requested that the committee be involved. Associate dean John William Eley rejected the request, saying: “The School of Medicine Conduct Code does not include a role for the [committee] in a student disciplinary matter.”
Eley later insisted that Mohammad accept the university’s verdict or face a hearing in November that year.
At the hearing, the professor in question, the associate dean and a faculty adviser of the professor demanded that Mohammad be barred from ever practicing medicine.
“They wanted me to never be able to practice medicine … [and] one was spitting across the table, his face red, yelling a lot,” Mohammad said.
At one point, a professor screamed: “Who are you to decide what’s a genocide?”
Mohammad later described the hearing as the “most dehumanising two hours of my life”.
Sociology professor Karida L Brown, who accompanied Mohammad in the hearing, described the hearing as being like a “Jim Crow court”. Mohammad was later suspended from the medical school for a year.
Mohammad’s case is one of many in the US, where authorities have increasingly targeted pro-Palestinian activism and critics of Israel.
Earlier this month, US authorities detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a key organiser of the 2024 Columbia University protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. The Trump administration had attempted to have Khalil deported – a move that has been paused by the judiciary.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vowed to cancel the visas of more students in relation to pro-Gaza activism, which the Trump administration has described as being “pro-Hamas” activity.
