Umaymah Mohammad, an MD/PhD student at Emory University School of Medicine (SOM), has been suspended for a year following her courageous activism opposing the genocide in Palestine.

In an April 2024 interview on Democracy Now!, Umaymah highlighted the hypocrisy of Emory SOM, contrasting the treatment of a Palestinian faculty member who was dismissed for supporting Palestinian rights with a faculty member who was welcomed back after serving in the Israeli military during the devastation of Gaza. Instead of commending her for exposing institutional complicity, Emory SOM suspended her for supposedly violating "professionalism" and "respect", charges which are baseless.

The Emory Committee for Open Expression (CFOE) conducted an independent investigation and concluded that Umaymah’s speech was protected under Emory’s Respect for Open Expression Policy. CFOE recommended that the charges be dropped, but SOM administration has ignored this recommendation.

Umaymah is now challenging this wrongful suspension through an appeal and a case via the National Labor Relations Board. As scientists and advocates for justice, we recognize that institutions like Emory SOM must be held accountable for their complicity in violent, colonial, racist projects.

Stand in solidarity with Umaymah Mohammad, call on Emory SOM to:

1. Drop the suspension against Umaymah Mohammad without delay.
2. Investigate faculty and students endorsing Israel’s apartheid regime and remove them for patient safety and compliance with international demands.
3. Publicly apologize for your shameful targeting of students and faculty who are have used their voice to call for the end of the genocide in Gaza.

Contact Emory SOM Deans Sandra Wong and John William Eley to demand justice for Umaymah. Use the tool below to send an email to the deans.

Also: Call the Deans' Offices

On your phone 📱, press a button below and follow a script.

Short script: "Hello, my name is [Your Name]. I’m calling to urge Emory SOM to drop the charges against Umaymah Mohammad and rescind her suspension. Her speech was protected under Emory’s Respect for Open Expression Policy, and her suspension undermines Emory’s commitment to justice and academic freedom."

Long script: "Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I am a [community member/medical student/other identifier]. I’m calling to express my concern over the suspension of Umaymah Mohammad, a Palestinian MD/PhD student at Emory. This decision is part of a troubling pattern of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian actions at Emory, including the firing of Dr. Abeer AbouYabis.

Additionally, I’m alarmed by the institution’s endorsement of faculty like Dr. Joshua Winer, who recently served in the Israeli military. Is supporting genocide and war crimes more acceptable at Emory than resisting them? This erodes my trust in Emory as a safe and ethical place for students, faculty, and patients.

I call on Emory to:

1. Drop the suspension against Umaymah Mohammad without delay.
2. Investigate faculty and students endorsing Israel’s apartheid regime and remove them for patient safety and compliance with international demands.
3. Publicly apologize for your shameful targeting of students and faculty who are using their voice to call for the end of the genocide in Gaza.

Failure to act will forever tarnish your institution’s legacy. History will not forget your complicity in genocide."

Emory University School of Medicine suspends medical student for her Palestine solidarity

The Emory University School of Medicine (SOM) has suspended Umaymah Mohammad, an MD/PhD student in the SOM and the Emory Department of Sociology for a year for comments she made in an interview on the US news program Democracy Now! on 26 April 2024. In the interview Ms. Mohammad described the contrast between two members of the faculty of medicine at Emory, one a Palestinian who was put on leave following comments she made in October 2023 in support of the Palestinian resistance, the other a physician who served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in both a military and medical capacity during the genocide in Gaza in early 2024. Without naming the doctor, Ms. Mohammad described how his actions contributed to "the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza" and "the murder of over 400 healthcare workers". While we would argue that Ms. Mohammad should be commended for exposing the hypocrisy of an institution such as the SOM, the leadership of the institution, at the urging of one of the school's deans and the IDF physician, chose to bring allegations of inciting violence, defamation, libel, discrimination, and abuse of social media against her, eventually modifying the charges when Ms. Mohammad refused to admit her guilt. A hearing on 19 November 2024 found Ms. Mohammad to be guilty of violating "professionalism" and "respect" and suspended her for a year from medical school.

Emory University has a Committee for Open Expression (CFOE), which conducted its own two-month-long investigation of the case and concluded that  "Ms. Mohammad's speech was protected by the Emory Respect for Open Expression Policy, and that, by refusing to engage with CFOE during the process, the SOM Administration additionally violated the Policy." The CFOE recommended that "the proceedings against Ms. Mohammad be dropped."

Ms. Mohammad is now challenging the school's actions. On 26 November 2024, she filed an appeal with the school. As a member of the graduate students' union at Emory, she has also filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

We in the IUS know Ms. Mohammad as one of the speakers in our webinar on International Student Movements Against Genocide in Palestine, held on 2 November 2024. In the webinar, she gave an insightful presentation on Resisting Genocide as a Healthcare Worker/Student. Webinar participants learned how the direct involvement of US health-care workers in the ongoing genocide in Palestine provides an apt illustration of how health-care institutions, historically embedded in colonial and racist projects, continue to be complicit.

More on Ms. Mohammad's case can be found in her Mondoweiss article of 21 January 2025.

In early 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling, acknowledging the plausibility of genocide allegations against Israel.

"In the Order of 26 January 2024, the Court also found that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa under the Genocide Convention and for which it was seeking protection were plausible, namely the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts…"

As scientists, we recognize that science, including medical science, is inseparable from the social and political contexts in which it operates. Recognizing these connections in the context of the ongoing genocide, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesa Albanese has urged “medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza.” Under these circumstances, it is shocking to see an active collaborator in the genocide welcomed back to the faculty of an institution such as the Emory SOM.

We believe that it is the duty of workers in these fields to expose the role played by research and practice in furthering imperialist and genocidal projects, like the one we see before us in Palestine today. We stand in solidarity with those, like Ms. Mohammad, who risk their careers, by standing up for justice and for science in service of people. We recognize that her case is not isolated, that it is part of a widespread process in universities across the US, by which those who call out the complicity of their institutions, or even call attention to the ongoing genocide, are disciplined.

Emory University’s history is marred by its complicity in slavery and Jim Crow segregation—a legacy it has admirably sought to confront and redress in recent decades. Yet, by tolerating employees who materially support Israeli violence, and by targeting a student who dares to hold the institution to its professed values, Emory SOM engages in repeating the sins of its past. In aligning itself with another oppressive regime, the university undermines its hard-won progress and tarnishes its moral standing once more.

We are therefore calling for the Emory School of Medicine to:

• Drop the suspension against Umaymah Mohammad without delay.
• Investigate faculty and students endorsing Israel’s apartheid regime and remove them for patient safety and compliance with international demands.
• Publicly apologize for your shameful targeting of students and faculty who are have used their voice to call for the end of the genocide in Gaza.

We urge all readers, especially scientists and health care workers, to contact Emory SOM Dean Sandra Wong and Associate Dean John William Eley to express their outrage at the treatment of Ms. Mohammed.

More information

• Umaymah Mohammad on "Resisting genocide as a healthcare worker/student"
• Instagram campaign post.
• Linktree.
• Action Network email campaign.