A first-year medical student from Israel who was accused by a UCSF professor of “participating in the genocide of Palestinians” likely does not and never did exist, a new lawsuit revealed this week.
The strange revelation, contained in a 19-page complaint for wrongful termination filed on behalf of Dr. Rupa Marya in federal court on Wednesday, calls into question how much of the controversy surrounding her has been “manufactured,” her lawyers argue.
Marya, a doctor who helped lead an influential pro-Palestinian movement at UCSF, wrote in a blog post that she was fired by UCSF in May. She is suing the university and hospital system in federal and state courts, alleging it violated her free speech rights. In legal documents, her attorneys say she was “suspended” rather than fired. UCSF does not comment on personnel matters as a matter of policy.
The admission that the Israeli medical student was not real points to the stridency with which Marya sought to identify and tarnish Israel and Israelis in her midst.
“It’s the climate that Jewish students are facing. It’s just emblematic of it,” a Jewish UCSF community member told J. on Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of litigation and reputational damage.
Marya is an activist, a musician and a social justice-oriented physician who published a book that examines how concepts like colonialism and white supremacy impact health outcomes. She is also a staunch anti-Zionist. In social media posts on X and Instagram, where she has tens of thousands of followers, she has frequently railed against Israel specifically and Zionism more broadly.
A number of her social media posts caused controversy, but the complaint points to one on Sept. 22, 2024, that immediately preceded disciplinary action by her employer. UCSF placed Marya on leave a day after she took aim at an unnamed “first year student from Israel.”
“Med students at UCSF are concerned that a first year student from Israel is in their class,” the post read. “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?”
The X post drew allegations of discrimination and harassment, including from the local Israeli consular office in San Francisco. UCSF released a statement on Sept. 23 describing her post as a “serious matter involving the targeting of students on social media based on their national origin.” Chancellor Sam Hawgood said the university had “taken immediate action to address the situation.”
Marya has repeatedly defended her posts as aimed at Zionism — an ideology she likens to white supremacy, racism and colonialism — rather than Judaism. The lawsuit states that “neither her views nor her posts are antisemitic” and are directed at Zionism and “supremacist political ideologies.”
Two Jewish UCSF staff members who spoke with J. at the time of the X post said they weren’t aware of any first-year Israeli medical student. One of them later said the misunderstanding may have originated from a rumor passed between medical students.
The complaint appears to affirm that the social media post in question was misguided.
“Remarkably, there is now no record of a first-year medical student who had just come from Israel, leaving those involved to wonder whether this entire contretemps had been manufactured,” the complaint from Marya’s legal team states.
“Although the student may have been fabricated,” it continues, “the fears about the student were objectively reasonable.” The complaint then lists alleged harassment and other misdeeds by Israelis on university campuses nationwide, including reports that Israelis at Columbia University sprayed pro-Palestinian students with a “toxic chemical.” That report was later debunked after the substance was revealed to be nontoxic “fart spray.”
Marya was hired by UCSF in 2007, the complaint states. She worked part time.
She suffered from long Covid and was on medical leave for months in part because of the stress of the controversy surrounding her social media posts and the negative attention she received online and from university leadership, according to the complaint.
In January 2024, Marya published an X post stating the “presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity.”
“We see Zionist doctors justifying the genocide of Palestinians,” the post continued. “How does their outlook/position impact priorities in US medicine?” The post led to a flood of criticism online and a public statement from UCSF saying it referenced a “tired and familiar racist conspiracy theory.” Critics drew comparisons to the Soviet-era “Doctor’s Plot,” a conspiracy theory that an anti-Soviet cabal, many of them Jews, were trying to poison top-level officials.
The complaint argues Marya is a politically minded physician known for advocating for “oppressed people” all over the world and is being illegally targeted for speaking out against a genocide in Gaza. The complaint describes a “coordinated effort inside and outside UCSF to disparage, harass, and threaten Dr. Marya.” It is seeking damages, a judgment that her constitutional rights have been violated and an order prohibiting UCSF from sharing comments with other hospitals about “anything other than her clinical competence.”