The University of California San Francisco has suspended a controversial professor of medicine who published incendiary social media posts this year criticizing Zionism and raising questions about an unnamed first-year Israeli medical student.
Rupa Marya, a professor of internal medicine at UCSF who has been outspoken against Israel during a year in which the prestigious university battled persistent allegations of a hostile climate for pro-Israel Jews, announced she had been suspended in a lengthy essay posted to the content platform Substack on Oct. 15.
“On the Fall Equinox 2024, I was suspended from my faculty position as a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) because of my support for the liberation of Palestinians who are suffering genocide,” the essay said.
UCSF said via a spokesperson that it could not comment on personnel matters.
The fall equinox fell on Sept. 22, one day after the social media post about the Israeli medical student and his presumed service in the Israel Defense Forces came to the public’s attention. The post has since been deleted, along with Marya’s X account.
“Med students at UCSF are concerned that a first year student from Israel is in their class,” the post said, according to widely shared screenshots. “They’re asking if he participated in the genocide of Palestinians in the IDF before matriculating into medical school in CA. How do we address this in our professional ranks?”
Stretching close to 4,000 words, her essay announcing the suspension was unsparing, describing a “coordinated” campaign by powerful interests, Jewish pro-Israel donors, and a “repressive” UCSF administration to silence her and people like her. She linked to a petition opposing “UCSF repression” that had received more than 1,200 signatures.
“Across the academy in the US, there is a coordinated set of attacks on people of color, our allies and our collective scholarship that centers liberation of all people in all circumstances,” the post said.
Marya, who teaches internal medicine, is also a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, made up of health professionals and activists who aim “to eradicate systems of oppression” that impinge on people’s health, dignity and sovereignty, according to its website.
The coalition, founded eight years ago, has been extremely outspoken against Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, including accusing Israel of “genocide” three weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began.
A staunch critic of concepts such as colonialism and capitalism, Marya attributes specific health symptoms to them, such as inflammation. She is the co-author of “Inflamed,” a book that examines what she described as the negative impacts of “colonialism and capitalism on our bodies.”
Two days after Marya’s post about the Israeli student, UCSF condemned it for “targeting” a student based on national origin and, via a statement from chancellor Sam Hawgood, said the university had “taken immediate action to address the situation.” At the time, it was not clear what action had been taken.
It was the second major social media controversy for Marya this year.
In January, Marya — who was born in Mountain View to Punjabi parents, according to her biography on OneEarth.org, and was also raised in France and India, according an NPR report — published a post on X that drew allegations of extreme anti-Israel animosity and antisemitism for criticizing “Zionist doctors.” In written statements Marya has firmly denied allegations of antisemitism.
The January post said “the presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity. Zionism is a supremacist, racist ideology and we see Zionist doctors justifying the genocide of Palestinians.”
While Marya’s posts have received negative attention and condemnation from her university, she remains highly regarded in some academic circles.
Earlier this year, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas announced Marya will be the featured speaker for an annual lecture on “peace, social justice and human rights.” The March 2025 lecture is scheduled to take place at the famed Rothko Chapel in Houston.