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California College Sued for Punishing Jewish Professor Over Conversation on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Edward H. Blake via Wikimedia Commons
A Jewish professor is suing the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco for allegedly violating her rights by punishing her because she disagreed with students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner by the Deborah Project, a legal nonprofit which defends the civil rights of Jewish educators, Professor Karen Fiss’s tribulations began on Oct. 23, 2023, when she exchanged remarks with several members of the terrorist-linked Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group who summoned her to an anti-Zionist display and asked that she support the campaign for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Fiss scanned their materials — which included a sign that proclaimed the anti-Israel genocidal slogan “From the river to the sea,” artwork, and quick response (QR) codes promoting their cause — and initiated a dialogue with the students, asking what the slogan meant and what news sources they read. Offended by Fiss’s signaling she was not an anti-Zionist, one of the students tore down the “from the river to the sea sign” and began arguing that reports of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 were fabricated.
The conversation reached the fateful moment which precipitated Fiss’s lawsuit when one of the students, Maryiam Alwael, asserted that her knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was superior because she was a native of Kuwait, to which Fiss responded by asking the student if she was aware of the Kuwaiti government’s expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians in 1991. Fiss then argued for a more nuanced narrative of the Middle Eastern conflict, noting that not all Middle Easterners are anti-Israel and many oppose Hamas and disapprove of Iran’s backing of it. She ended by counseling the young women to avoid ideological echo chambers. Alwael said she liked her own views.
While both sides made sharp points, the conversation remained civil, according to court documents. However, the students interpreted Fiss’s comments as an attack on their identities and filed a complaint which accused her of being “harassing and discriminatory.” With little due process, Fiss was ultimately found guilty of the allegation and forced to submit to a series of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” trainings — a form of political rehabilitation in which subjects are forced to denounce key values of Western civilization such as the meritocracy and the sovereignty of the individual.
In explaining its guilty verdict, the college accused Fiss of being culturally insensitive and imposing her “power” on the women, who are ethnic minorities of color. Fiss, it said, “began explaining the history of Alwael’s country to her,” and “caused the students to reasonably believe” that Fiss was “using [her] positional power as a professor to get the outcome [she] sought, which was for the students to agree with [her] point of view.”
The college reached these findings but declined to apply the same logic to an earlier complaint Fiss had filed about the Critical Ethnic Studies program’s issuing a statement — “DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY,” it said — which justified Hamas’s violence and implied that Jews are not indigenous to their own homeland. This is because, the Deborah Project says, CCA rules are in place to protect left-wing anti-Zionism and punish Jews who oppose it.
“Because Dr. Fiss’s beliefs do not align with the creed mandated and enforced by the college, she has suffered repeated and severe adverse treatment by CCA, which has dramatically impeded her ability to function as a scholar,” the Deborah Project said in its complaint. “As part of its policy of enforcing ideological conformity about Israel, CCA has threatened Dr. Fiss with dismissal for two reasons: (1) her refusal to comply with student demands to contact her congressional representatives to pressure Israel — a sovereign nation — to cease its military response to an ongoing threat; and (2) for respectfully challenging this monopolization of discourse and reaffirming the principles of open dialogue and open debate within CCA.”
According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, the college ignored Fiss’s concerns about widespread support for Hamas’s atrocities in Israel last Oct. 7, arguing they were simply expressions of free speech.
“Karen Fiss, a fully-tenured professor at CCA was told that her pain, intimidation, and horror upon learning that a huge number of not only students at CCA but her fellow faculty members, the department chairs, and members of the administration not only justified, but supported the wanton rape, torture, and murder of her co-religionists on Oct. 7 was not problematic as far as CCA was concerned because those positions were protected by free speech,” Lowenthal Marcus told The Algemeiner.
She added that CCA “accorded no such academic freedom to Dr. Fiss, who was disciplined for a single conversation that all parties agree was civil.”
“For this actual exercise of academic freedom,” Lowenthal Marcus concluded, “CCA found that Dr. Fiss’s speech constituted harassment of the Kuwaiti student. It was also found to be bullying, on the theory that Dr. Fiss was found to have used her position as a faculty member to pressure the students to adopt Dr. Fiss’s view — when it is undisputed that, throughout the conversation, the students did not even know Dr. Fiss was a professor. For this, Dr. Fiss’s file was permanently marked, and she was warned that if such a thing were to occur again, Fiss would suffer additional punishment, up to and including termination.
Now, with her reputation blighted by scandal and the college threatening revoke her tenure, Fiss is fighting for both her right to exist as a proud Jew at work as well as her right to free speech. She is suing CCA for discriminating against her for being Jewish, a violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and breach of contract, offenses which caused her “substantial damages” and other trauma.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California College Sued for Punishing Jewish Professor Over Conversation on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.