Third Report of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim, and Anti-Arab Racism

Palestinian Human Rights and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Medical School, UCLA

Medical schools and hospitals across the U.S. have become places where no expression of support for Palestinians undergoing a genocidal assault from Israel is tolerated. Palestine Legal, an independent organization defending people who support Palestinian rights, reports the following: “The medical field also saw widespread suppression of political expression. Numerous physicians and medical residents reported being pulled off rotations or even fired outright for their social media posts supporting Palestine.”¹

This contrasts with widespread tolerance and even support for war victims in Ukraine, for example.

At UCLA, students, residents, and faculty in the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) who express support for Palestinian human rights and who offer any criticism of Israel’s violation of them face harassment from within and outside the medical school, a sustained suppression of speech, and limitations on the academic freedom to teach about racial justice and health inequities. Their professional lives are seriously impacted by this repression and retaliation. They learn, teach, and work in a climate of heightened racial hostility, lose professional opportunities, and find themselves unsupported and unprotected by the university when they are attacked by those working to suppress speech and curtail academic freedom on the matter of Palestinian human rights.

Read the full report by downloading the documents below: