US medical student suspended for Gaza remarks sues university for 'intentional discrimination' [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Umaymah Mohammad, perhaps the only student in the US to be suspended from medical school for remarks about Israel and Gaza, has filed a federal lawsuit against Atlanta’s Emory University, alleging discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as additional complaints under state law.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday morning in federal district court on Mohammad’s behalf by the Council on Islamic-American Relations in Georgia (Cair-Ga), centers on Emory’s alleged “intentional discrimination and retaliation” during disciplinary proceedings against the medical-sociology dual degree student last year. It names the university, its board of trustees and John William Eley, a dean at the medical school, as defendants.

It has been filed in pursuit of “accountability and justice … [and] has potential repercussions for how student activists have been treated over the last two years in this country”, said Azka Mahmood, executive director of Cair-Ga.

If successful, the lawsuit could lead to “stopping disciplinary proceedings for protected expression – and that this becomes more of a policy moving forward” – both at Emory and elsewhere, said Keon Grant, one of the Cair-Ga attorneys who filed the complaint.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/07/emory-university-israel-gaza-student-lawsuit-