California State Senator Scott Wiener and UCSF’s largest donor, the Diller Foundation, are named in new allegations by Dr. Rupa Marya, prominent physician, activist, and musician, who is suing UCSF over her recent termination stemming from public criticism of Israel.

According to the Chronicle, in two lawsuits filed last week, Marya accused the university of colluding with political allies and donor networks to smear her reputation, destroy her career, and silence her advocacy for Palestinian rights.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! last week, Marya said her termination at UCSF is tied to a coordinated network that includes Senator Scott Wiener—who has been outspoken against pro-Palestinian speech—and the billionaire Diller family. The Diller’s foundation has made major donations to UCSF, supported Wiener’s political campaigns, and funded Canary Mission, a controversial website known for doxxing pro-Palestinian activists, as reported by The Intercept. She adds that Canary Mission has reportedly been used by the Trump administration to justify student deportations.

“When UCSF, in coordination with Scott Wiener, started publishing defamatory statements about me across multiple social media sites, I received horrific threats—death threats, rape threats,” Marya told Democracy Now!. “Faculty members told me they were being asked to submit false reports of my clinical behavior, which, in 23 years of practice, I’ve had no incidents of patient safety issues.”

While her termination was made official in May, the tension surrounding Marya’s pro-Palestinian stance traces back to last year. As reported by SFist, UCSF had become a flashpoint for controversy over protest and free speech surrounding Gaza—despite being a medical campus with no undergraduate body. A public conflict erupted after Marya called a colleague’s internal UCSF email—one that questioned a ceasefire and suggested it could embolden Hamas—“an expression of anti-Arab hate.” That colleague, Dr. Avromi Kanal, filed a complaint with the university, which was ultimately dismissed on First Amendment grounds. Kanal said he felt unsafe and unsupported by UCSF leadership, while others, like longtime Palestinian American faculty member Dr. Jess Ghannam, defended the right to protest and criticized the conflation of discomfort with harm.

Marya was suspended and subjected to a months-long faculty conduct process before being officially fired on May 20 of this year, which she says was retaliatory. She alleges that UCSF administrators attacked her medical license and suspended her without cause, while ignoring her earlier reports of racist, Islamophobic remarks made by colleagues in internal communications. Those complaints, according to her lawsuit, were quietly closed without serious inquiry.

Before her recent outspoken support for Palestinian rights, Marya had long been a respected figure in the medical community. Named one of Nature’s 20 most influential women in biomedicine, she served on multiple national advisory boards and co-authored the book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, a study of how colonialism and structural racism affect health outcomes. Her research often focused on care disparities among Black, Indigenous, and unhoused patients—work she says also drew backlash inside the university.

“UCSF leadership repeatedly characterized Dr. Marya’s advocacy for marginalized patients as ‘unprofessional,’ ‘aggressive,’ and ‘harmful,’” the complaints read. As a woman of Indian descent raised in a Sikh household, Marya says she was targeted with “racist tropes” meant to discredit her both personally and professionally.

Her lawsuits—one filed in federal court for First Amendment violations, the other a state civil rights complaint—seek damages for loss of income and psychological distress. They name UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood and other university officials, and come at a time when the UC system has faced criticism for disciplining faculty and staff who have spoken out against Israel’s military campaign.

Marya says her comments—most notably “stop bombing hospitals”—should never have put her career at risk. “It is our moral and professional obligation to speak out about children being harmed in the ways that they are in Gaza, about hospitals and the whole healthcare structure being destroyed in Gaza,” she told Democracy Now! “and about our healthcare colleagues who have been abducted, tortured and killed in Gaza.”

Her firing has since galvanized a growing coalition. More than 1,000 healthcare workers and students have signed open letters demanding her reinstatement and denouncing UCSF’s crackdown on political expression. Meanwhile, the university has continued to promote speakers with close ties to Israeli lobbying groups, including Elan Carr of the Israeli American Council—despite vocal objections from Jewish, Arab, Muslim, LGBTQ+, and Palestinian members of the campus community.

Marya hopes the lawsuits will spark public awareness and systemic change. “Solidarity is the only thing we have. It’s our superpower to fight authoritarianism, fascism and this kind of racist repression,” she said. “So, I ask for all healthcare workers around the world to stand in solidarity with me, because my fight is our fight, and our fight is for the liberation of Palestine and our collective liberation.”

Image: © pitpony photography / Wikimedia

Previously: Doctors at UCSF Battle Over Opinions of the Gaza War, Question Whether Protest Should Happen at a Hospital