US medical student suspended for Gaza remarks sues university for 'intentional discrimination'

[groundloop]

Source: The Guardian

Umaymah Mohammad, perhaps the only student in the US to be suspended from medical school for remarks about Israel and Gaza, has filed a federal lawsuit against Atlanta’s Emory University, alleging discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as additional complaints under state law.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday morning in federal district court on Mohammad’s behalf by the Council on Islamic-American Relations in Georgia (Cair-Ga), centers on Emory’s alleged “intentional discrimination and retaliation” during disciplinary proceedings against the medical-sociology dual degree student last year. It names the university, its board of trustees and John William Eley, a dean at the medical school, as defendants.

It has been filed in pursuit of “accountability and justice … [and] has potential repercussions for how student activists have been treated over the last two years in this country”, said Azka Mahmood, executive director of Cair-Ga.

If successful, the lawsuit could lead to “stopping disciplinary proceedings for protected expression – and that this becomes more of a policy moving forward” – both at Emory and elsewhere, said Keon Grant, one of the Cair-Ga attorneys who filed the complaint.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/07/emory-university-israel-gaza-student-lawsuit-

[stopdiggin]

1. appears like Mohammad lashed out at both university AND individual faculty

with some fairly offensive (and targeted) stuff.
(not sure if this was an ongoing pattern - suspected - or a singular incident) But it would seem like the 'disciplinary hearing' was well within bounds of the norms for such situation. Guess we'll see how the 'suspension' plays out in court.

Mohammad interviewed with Democracy Now! on April 26, 2024, about the encampment and called out Emory faculty for enabling Israel’s genocide. During the interview, she referred to an IDF soldier-physician who works at Emory without naming the him. She said that this individual “aided and abetted in a genocide, aided and abetted in the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and in 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.”

This soldier-physician, Dr. Joshua H. Winer, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Winer discussed his experience serving in the IDF in a Times of Israel article.

On June 17, 2024, Mohammad received an email from the Dean of Medical Education Affairs stating that she had been accused of violating the Emory code of student conduct in connection with the interview she gave on Democracy Now!. She was suspended for violating Emory’s code of conduct requiring “professionalism” and “respect.” During her conduct hearing in November, she detailed the suspension, saying, “All three of [the complainants] advocated for my expulsion. All three of them advocated that I should never be able to practice medicine.” Mohammad quickly appealed the suspension, but her appeal was rejected.

“In a world where so much Palestinian flesh has been taken off the planet, has been stolen from the world, how can I deliver even an ounce for them to take?” Mohammad said. “I decided, even if I knew I was going to lose the hearing, I was going to fight. I was going to fight for my right to be a medical student, fight for my right to speak the truth, and my right to expose the genocide of my people and the ways medical institutions are complicit in it.”

https://atlpresscollective.com/2025/02/12/emory-university-suspends-palestinian-medical-student-umaymah-mohammad-for-speaking-out-in-support-of-palestine-during-media-interview/

[lapucelle]

2. Her remarks weren't about "Israel & Gaza". She accused one of the medical school professors of genocide.

That's a serious and slanderous charge to make. It's also a breach of the medical school's professional code of conduct.

One of the professors of medicine we have at Emory recently went to serve as a volunteer medic in the Israeli Offense Force and recently came back.

This man 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.

It's in the transcript of the interview she did with Theocracy Now!

NB
The Jewish professor in question volunteered for service as a surgeon on October 8, 2023, shortly after news of Hamas's invasion of Israel and the concomitant protracted rape-torture-murder spree broke.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-ongoing-quest-to-serve/