In December, Bridget Rochios, a nurse practitioner and midwife at the University of California, San Francisco, showed up to work wearing a keffiyeh.
Later, she and other co-workers started coming to work wearing “Free Palestine” pins, as well as hospital ID badges shaped like a watermelon, a pro-Palestine symbol.
Rochios, whose work includes addressing health disparities within reproductive health care, had been moved by reports of Israel’s targeting and destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and health care system, and started wearing the items as a show of solidarity with Palestinian women and babies, as well as her medical colleagues in Gaza.
Supervisors ordered Rochios and her colleagues to remove the pins, threatening them with suspension or termination. Most complied, but Rochios refused.
In April, she traveled to Gaza where she spent a month delivering babies at a maternity hospital in Rafah and the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. She saw some of the many delivering mothers who have suffered under dire conditions in Gaza.
“The people who are really ‘unsafe’ are the women who I was supporting in labor as literally bombs were dropping.”
A week after she returned to the U.S., her supervisors at the UCSF Mission Bay campus, one of the graduate school and hospital system’s 10 campuses, placed Rochios on a three-month paid administrative leave for “insubordination.” Her suspension was renewed in September after she again refused to remove her watermelon pin. She may still face further sanctions, including termination. University representatives have told her that several colleagues and patients said the pin made them feel “unsafe.”
“The people who are really ‘unsafe’ are the women who I was supporting in labor as literally bombs were dropping and shaking the walls of our hospital,” Rochios told The Intercept, recalling moments during Israel’s invasion of Rafah. “Women who have not had prenatal care at all; women who went to walk to the hospital in labor and have a baby, and then two hours later, walk back home to their tent where they did not have running water, where they don’t have enough food or hydration to breastfeed, no clean water, or money to buy formula for their kids.”
Medical professionals, especially those who have treated patients in Gaza’s and Lebanon’s hospitals over the past year, have spoken out about atrocities carried out by the Israeli military. Doing so at UCSF, one of the country’s most elite medical institutions, may come at a price.
Rochios is one of nine health care workers at UCSF who spoke with The Intercept about their experiences of censorship and punishment after speaking out about human rights for Palestinians as a part of their research and medical work.
UCSF declined to comment or respond to a detailed list of questions or multiple phone calls over the course of a week. A UCSF spokesperson said they were concerned that the accounts of UCSF employees were being “taken out of context.”
Rupa Marya, an internal medicine physician and lecturer at UCSF, is perhaps the most notable and vocal among those who have received pushback. In her social media posts in January, Marya, an expert in decolonial theory, questioned the impacts of Zionism as “a supremacist, racist ideology” on health care and drew immediate criticism from pro-Israel colleagues and Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener.
The university then published a statement across its social media accounts addressing the posts without naming Marya, disavowing her statements as “antisemitic attacks.” Wiener thanked UCSF for the statement. A flurry of online attacks against Marya followed, including racist and sexist attacks and threats of death and sexual violence. Wiener has continued to single out Marya on social media.
In September, Marya wrote a new post on social media that UCSF students were concerned that a first-year student from Israel may have served in the Israeli military in the prior year, then asked, “How do we address this in our professional ranks?”
The following month, the university placed her on paid leave and suspended her ability to practice medicine pending an investigation into the post. The university has since reinstated her ability to give clinical care, but she remains banned from campus, including the hospital where she worked.
“I wanted to protect people who have lost family members,” Marya said. “People are being murdered, doctors are being disappeared, hospitals are being bombed — you have this traumatized community in UCSF.
I have been attempting to amplify the voices of Muslim, Indigenous, Black, and SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) students who are deeply afraid.
The Center for Protest Law and Litigation, a First Amendment organization, is helping Marya in acquiring public records regarding potential communications about her social media posts between UCSF, Wiener, and the Helen Diller Family Foundation, the school’s largest donor that has previously supported pro-Israel propaganda groups. The center filed a lawsuit for the records after the university failed to provide documents following nine months of communication, during which the school claimed that such records are exempt from freedom of information laws.
In a statement to The Intercept, Wiener stated that Marya’s social media posts had “crossed a line,” accusing her of propagating “antisemitic conspiracy theories targeting Jewish doctors” and an Israeli medical student. He mentioned that concerned UCSF faculty and students brought the January and October posts to his attention. Wiener, as part of the legislature’s Jewish Caucus, had previously criticized K-12 school districts for teaching history lessons critical of Israel, labeling them as “bigoted, inaccurate, discriminatory, and deeply offensive anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda” in a January letter to state lawmakers. He condemned the online threats against Marya and called for an investigation.
The crackdown by the school has been extensive, targeting professors, doctors, and medical staff. Doctors have had their lectures mentioning Gaza removed from the internet or canceled outright. They have been accused of antisemitism and creating an unsafe work environment, resulting in being banned from lecturing. Staff, nurses, and students have faced suspensions for showing solidarity or engaging in simple acts like wearing a watermelon pin or displaying pro-Palestine symbols in their offices. Many employees have criticized UCSF’s silence and failure to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing the school of favoring pro-Israel viewpoints.
Dan Siegel, a longtime civil rights attorney in the Bay Area representing several UCSF employees facing discipline, noted the unprecedented nature of punishing employees for speaking out on a specific issue. He criticized the promotion of an atmosphere where censorship based on discomfort has become normalized, questioning the criteria for limiting speech.
House Republicans, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, informed UCSF of an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the institution in late July. They threatened to withhold federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid payments, from the school and health care system. This investigation is part of a larger partisan effort targeting universities with vocal critics of Israel among their students and faculty.
Three UCSF physicians have been prohibited from delivering lectures after discussing the negative health impacts of Israel’s actions in Gaza or the apartheid health system in the Occupied Territories. Jess Ghannam has faced pushback for his scholarship in the past. In 2012, during one of his lectures about Gaza at UCSF, Ghannam had the police called on him by an attendee who claimed they didn’t feel safe with him on campus. Later that year, a student ran out of a lecture Ghannam was delivering at UC Davis, burst into tears, and later filed a complaint alleging that Ghannam had created an unsafe learning environment. (UC Davis conducted a formal investigation, which ultimately dismissed the complaint.)
Throughout his 25 years at the university, Ghannam never had any lectures canceled outright. He is a renowned speaker who has shared his research on the effects of war on displaced communities, such as Palestinians, in various venues over the past two decades. He also played a role in establishing mental health and medical clinics for Palestinians, interviewing Palestinian torture survivors who had been imprisoned in Israeli jails.
In September, Ghannam was scheduled to speak to first-year medical students after a group of medical students met with the university’s deans to advocate for more education on Palestine. However, four days before the scheduled talk, Ghannam was informed by the course instructor that his lecture was canceled due to a lack of time to provide support services for students who might be distressed by the topic.
In response, ninety-five medical students signed a letter to school officials condemning the cancellation as an intentional erasure of historical harms affecting communities and the medical profession. They accused the school of suppressing any acknowledgment or advocacy for Palestinian health issues, despite UCSF’s commitment to social justice. The students then independently hosted Ghannam, allowing him to deliver his lecture to an audience of about 100 people.
Similarly, Leigh Kimberg, a medical school professor and leader in violence prevention and trauma care, faced backlash after discussing the health of Palestinians in Gaza during a lecture at UCSF. Despite addressing the connections between trauma-informed care, the genocide in Gaza, and decrying antisemitism, complaints were made against her speech, leading to the removal of the recording from the school’s website. Kimberg was initially barred from giving future lectures but was later allowed to continue, albeit with restrictions.
Kimberg began publicly advocating for Palestine in October, receiving support from her Palestinian colleagues despite warnings of potential accusations of antisemitism. Her background as a person of Jewish ancestry with family ties to victims of the Holocaust added complexity to her advocacy for Palestine. Being Jewish won’t protect you – if anything, it might make things worse. But if you dare to speak up for Palestinian lives, you will undoubtedly be labeled as ‘antisemitic.’
And this has been my personal experience.
Such discrimination is what caused Keith Hansen, a former chief resident of surgery at UCSF, to hide his Palestinian background throughout his career. As chief resident in the fall of 2023, Hansen sent daily emails to his colleagues at San Francisco General Hospital, updating them on trauma surgery developments. In one email in October, amidst reports of Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza, he diverted from the usual updates to ask his colleagues to acknowledge the plight of doctors, surgeons, and patients being bombed by the Israeli government.
Although his co-workers appreciated the email, an attending physician labeled Hansen as “a polarizing figure” during his performance review due to the email.
In May, during a lecture as chief resident, Hansen discussed his work in organ transplantation and the health disparities faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He revealed his Palestinian heritage for the first time and called on the university to address these issues.
Following his talk, complaints were lodged against him for creating an unsafe environment, and he was instructed not to discuss anything political.
“People’s true colors show once they know your background,” Hansen remarked.
At the same time, pro-Israel speakers were welcomed on campus while Palestinian voices faced opposition.
Some employees were disciplined for wearing watermelon pins, a symbol of Palestinian liberation.
In a hospital setting where custom badge pins are common, expressing political views through pins is typical.
Rosita, a nurse at UCSF, made and distributed watermelon pins as a symbol of Palestinian liberation. She noted that the pins were a form of pride, solidarity, and acknowledgment.
In total, Rosita distributed 500 pins. As many workers received compliments from colleagues and patients for wearing pins, they were approached by managers who deemed the pins antisemitic. Workers were ordered to remove the pins under threat of suspension or termination. In September, Rosita’s manager called her for a counseling session, asking her to remove the pin because it made a staff member uncomfortable. Rosita refused, calling the request discrimination against the Palestinian people in an email response. She expressed her personal connection to the Palestinian cause through her niece and her reasons for wearing the pin.
Another staff member faced backlash for displaying pro-Palestine symbols. A researcher at UCSF was instructed to remove a sign from their office that expressed solidarity between the LGBTQ community and Palestinians. The researcher faced threats and accusations of supporting Hamas. The school attributed the symbol to a Nazi association and banned it from the staff member’s file.
Therapist Denise Caramagno was targeted for discussing legitimate questions about social determinants of health and supporting faculty of color. Despite her contributions to the school’s CARE program, she was accused of antisemitism for a tweet criticizing the school’s actions. Although no disciplinary action was taken, she was prohibited from serving as a point of contact for antisemitism reports.
Caramagno faced further repercussions for sharing an email seeking guidance from colleagues, leading to her suspension and intent to fire her. Despite her understanding of confidentiality laws, she was barred from campus and contacting clients. The situation escalated, with Caramagno facing termination.
Recently, a group gathered for the UC People’s Tribunal session to address the school’s complicity with Israel’s actions in Gaza and displacement of Palestinians. The UC system has shown bias towards Israel, opposing academic boycotts related to the country. The strategy is a component of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, aimed at attaining Palestinian statehood.
At La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, the People’s group brought tribunal charges against the University of California (UC) for its investments in Israeli companies and the activities of UCSF’s major private donor, the Diller family. Sanford Diller, a Bay Area real estate billionaire who passed away in 2018, contributed $1 billion to the school in 2017 and 2018, following $150 million over the previous 15 years.
The Diller Foundation, named after Sanford’s late wife Helen, also donated to the Canary Mission, a group that blacklists individuals critical of Israel. They supported other organizations like Regavim, Reservists on Duty, and Turning Point USA, among others. The foundation’s ties to far-right Zionist and conservative groups have raised concerns among UCSF faculty and staff.
Despite wanting to assist patients in Gaza, Ghannam faced travel restrictions due to his Palestinian ancestry. He expressed grief over the conflict in Gaza and the loss of colleagues and acquaintances.
Rochios advocated for the health inequality faced by Palestinians in Gaza and faced escalated punishment from UCSF, including a three-day unpaid suspension for wearing a keffiyeh and watermelon badge. She will return to work on November 21 but has been warned not to wear those items to avoid violating UCSF’s PRIDE policies and Principles of Community.
Anticipating termination due to the oppressive atmosphere at UCSF, she is prepared for the worst.
Comparing notes with her peers at San Francisco General Hospital, Rochios realizes that the hostility she faces is not the norm in her field. Unlike at UCSF, their counterparts at the hospital freely express their solidarity with Palestine, even going as far as wearing “Healthcare workers for Palestine” sweatshirts.
“I feel like an outcast at UCSF,” she lamented. “Yet, this issue is non-existent at a sister hospital in the same city.”
