UCSF Professor Fired After Gaza Comments—Now She’s Suing

Photo: MacMillan Publishers/Jennifer Graham

India-West News Desk

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Dr. Rupa Marya, a physician and professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has filed a federal lawsuit against the university after being suspended for online comments criticizing Zionism in the context of Israel’s war in Gaza. The lawsuit alleges that UCSF violated her constitutional right to free speech and retaliated against her for expressing political views rooted in her background and scholarship.

Marya, an internal medicine doctor and expert in decolonial theory, was placed on administrative leave in September 2024. Her clinical privileges were also temporarily revoked following a social media post in which she referred to Zionism as “a supremacist, racist ideology” and questioned its impact on healthcare equity.

In her lawsuit, Marya asserts that she was targeted for publicly criticizing political ideologies — not religious or ethnic identities. “As a medical doctor, American citizen and as a person of South Asian descent raised in the Sikh religious tradition, Dr. Marya has long been concerned about American foreign policy, including in the Middle East and the issues surrounding the conflict between Israel and Palestine,” the complaint states. “Her posts take aim at state policy and supremacist political ideologies, not at any religious or ethnic group.”

The lawsuit also details a wave of violent threats and harassment Marya received following her posts. According to court filings, she was subjected to “rape and death threats” and sustained intimidation online.

Marya was ultimately terminated from her position in May 2025, according to her attorney, without a hearing.

Born in California to Indian immigrant parents, Marya spent her formative years across the United States, France, and India — experiences that shaped her global view of justice, class, and power. She studied theater and molecular biology at the University of California, San Diego, before attending Georgetown University School of Medicine. During her residency at UCSF, she began fusing her medical career with artistic and political expression.

Marya is also known as the frontwoman of the band Rupa & the April Fishes. Their debut album, Extraordinary Rendition, responded to the post-9/11 political landscape, while the follow-up, Este Mundo, explored the lives of undocumented immigrants suffering from lack of access to healthcare.

Her music blends jazz, tango, klezmer, and Latin American sounds, and her activism has extended into legal battles — including as a lead plaintiff in the case that helped return “Happy Birthday to You” to the public domain.