When 28-year-old Umaymah Mohammad gave an interview to Democracy Now! during the student encampment for Gaza at Emory University in 2024, she believed, like any other student enrolled there, that she was protected by the institution’s policy on free expression.

But according to a report in The Guardian published on Monday, Mohammad – who is obtaining a sociology PhD and a medical degree at the same time – was suspended seven months later.

In that interview, Mohammad referred to, but did not name, a professor among the medical faculty who had returned from being a volunteer medic for the Israeli forces, in effect questioning how the university can reconcile the professor’s academic position with his role in an army that had killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

The professor “participated in aiding and abetting a genocide, in aiding and abetting the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza and the murder of over 400 healthcare workers, and is now back at Emory so-called ‘teaching’ medical students and residents how to take care of patients”, Mohammad said. ….more