Issues: Censorship, Academic Freedom, False Accusations

In September 2020, right-wing Israel advocacy groups pressured tech companies to censor an online class featuring Palestinian activist Leila Khaled.

The class was jointly organized by San Francisco State University (SFSU) professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa. It featured a panel of Palestinian, Black, Jewish, and South African activists.

The open classroom event was scheduled to take place on Zoom, the platform that SFSU was using to teach classes during the pandemic. But the tech company threatened to terminate the license for the entire California State University system if the class included Khaled, because of her involvement in two hijackings fifty years ago and her alleged role in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The professors cited their academic freedom and refused to change the content of their lesson. Zoom responded by unilaterally canceling the class session, and SFSU failed to provide the professors with an alternative platform for the class to take place.

The professors attempted to livestream the class through off-campus Facebook and YouTube accounts, but those tech giants also blocked the stream, leaving students with no access to the class.

In December 2020, Abdulhadi and Kinukawa filed a claim against SFSU for violating their rights and initiated a separate internal grievance process at the university in 2021.

In October 2021, the SFSU Faculty Hearing Committee found that the university had violated the professors’ academic freedom and called on the university to issue a public apology, a public letter of support for faculty with regards to academic freedom, and provide a site for rescheduling the event with Leila Khaled on an alternate platform, without interference.

In November, SFSU President Lynn Mahoney vetoed the decision, sparking widespread outcry from faculty around the country and calls for her to resign.

In the aftermath of these events, Palestine Legal received multiple reports of social media users having accounts suspended, placed under review, or partially disabled for sharing the events or even posting about the censorship.

Solidarity events also canceled >>

In October 2020, on the one-month anniversary of the censored class, professors from across the country and around the world planned a series of solidarity events featuring a video of Leila Khaled.

Events at the University of Hawai‘i-Manoa and at New York University were blocked by Zoom, while eight events at other universities went ahead as scheduled.

Like SFSU, the University of Hawai‘I and NYU failed to pressure Zoom to respect academic freedom and failed to provide professors an adequate alternative that would allow them to go forward with live events. At both schools, the panels had to be recorded privately and posted online.

Zoom blocked a similar event at the University of California, Merced in April 2021.

Timeline >>

Aug. 28, 2020: San Francisco State University professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa announce that their respective departments, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) and Women & Gender Studies (WGS) are co-hosting an open classroom webinar entitled “Whose Narratives?: Gender, Justice & Resistance” on September 23, 2020. The event includes Palestinian activist Leila Khaled, an icon of the Palestinian revolutionary movement.

Sept. 14, 2020: The Lawfare Project, a right-wing, pro-Israel legal harassment group, sends Zoom a letter incorrectly claiming that providing video conferencing services for the class will violate federal material support for terrorism provisions by giving a platform to Ms. Khaled, who is alleged to be a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Sept. 17, 2020: Zoom’s Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer Lynn Haaland writes to SFSU representatives suggesting that providing a platform to Ms. Khaled for a classroom event violates material support provisions and threatens the termination of Zoom accounts for the entire California State University (CSU) system should the event take place.

Sept. 18, 2020: SFSU Provost Jennifer Summit reaches out to the course professors, who confirm that Ms. Khaled is not speaking as a representative of the PFLP or receiving an honorarium or payment for her talk.

Sept. 21, 2020: Zoom’s compliance officer writes to CSU that the university has until the end of the day to confirm that Ms. Khaled is not an active member of the PFLP or face consequences for violating Zoom’s terms of service under the false claim that allowing Ms. Khaled to speak to a classroom will violate federal law.

Sept. 21, 2020: CSU’s deputy general counsel responds to Zoom that the university system protects the rights of free speech and academic freedom, that Ms. Khaled is not on any State Department list of prohibited individuals, and that the event does not violate material support provisions.

Sept. 21, 2020: Member of Congress Doug Lamborn writes to Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos urging her to cut federal funding to SFSU for hosting the event.

Sept. 22, 2020: An app affiliated with the Israeli government encourages users to go on a “mission” to pressure CSU leadership to cancel the event.

Sept. 22, 2020: Zoom’s compliance officer informs CSU that the event violates Zoom’s terms of service and that the university must not use Zoom to host the open classroom event. When SFSU does not cancel the event, citing academic freedom, Zoom itself terminates the webinar. SFSU refuses to provide an alternative venue for the course, violating the academic freedom of the professors and students.

Sept. 22, 2020: Right-wing pro-Israel legal harassment group the Lawfare Project claims victory for canceling the open classroom event.

Sept. 23, 2020: Event organizers attempt to host the event on Facebook and YouTube. Facebook removes the event page and threatens to suspend the accounts of groups that promote the event. YouTube removes multiple streams of the classroom webinar minutes after it starts.

Oct. 2020: Universities and academic groups plan a National Day of Action Against the Criminalization and Censorship of Campus Speech in response to Zoom’s cancelation of the SFSU event. The Day of Action encourages faculty to host Palestine webinars on their university Zoom accounts featuring a recorded video from Palestinian activist Leila Khaled on October 23rd.

Oct. 8, 2020: After the Lawfare Project urges the federal government to investigate the SFSU event, a representative from the Department of Education responds that she forwarded the concerns to the Department of the Treasury and the State Department.

Oct. 19, 2020: Right-wing pro-Israel organization StandWithUs sends Zoom a letter urging the company to cancel at Oct. 23 lecture at the University of Hawai’i - Manoa. The request does not mention any of the other scheduled Day of Action events.

Oct. 21, 2020: Zoom unilaterally cancels the scheduled event at the University of Hawai'i two days before the webinar is set to take place.

Oct. 22, 2020: Palestine Legal and a coalition of civil rights groups send legal letters against Zoom’s censorship and violation of academic freedom to Zoom, the University of Hawai’i, NYU and the University of Massachusetts.

Oct. 23, 2020: Most of the National Day of Action Against the Criminalization and Censorship of Campus events take place successfully, but Zoom censors three university talks - at the University of Hawai’i, NYU, and the University of Leeds in England. NYU refuses to provide an alternative platform despite requests from the hosting faculty. Facebook also deletes an event at the University of Western Ontario within hours of it being posted, and organizers have their accounts immediately disabled.

Dec. 21, 2020: SFSU professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa file a government claim against the California State University system for violating their rights to free speech and academic freedom.

Apr. 9, 2021: AMED Studies announces an April 23 event titled “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?” co-organized virtually at SFSU and the University of California, Merced featuring Leila Khaled and Black, Jewish and South African activists from the censored 2020 event.

Apr. 13, 2021: Zoom issues a company policy statement claiming to support academic freedom in providing virtual classroom services. Separately, Facebook shuts down the page of AMED Studies.

Apr. 14, 2021: The Lawfare Project, a right-wing, pro-Israel legal harassment group, sends a letter to Zoom and the chancellor of UC Merced urging them to cancel the event.

Apr. 21, 2021: Member of Congress Doug Lamborn sends a letter to the chancellor of UC Merced implicitly threatening the university’s funding if it allows the event to take place.

Apr. 22, 2021: Zoom cancels the UC Merced event scheduled for the next day, and hastily organizes an event on antisemitism to take place at the same time, describing it as “counter programming.”

June 21, 2021: The Electronic Frontier Foundation files a Freedom of Information Act request for records from the State Department to find out whether the federal government directed technology platforms to censor Leila Khaled’s speech.

Sept. 29, 2021: Dr. Abdulhadi and the AMED Studies program testify before a faculty panel in the first of two grievance hearings against SFSU for violating academic freedom by permitting the censorship of Dr. Abdulhadi and Dr. Kinukawa’s classes.

Oct. 14, 2021: A faculty panel at SFSU agrees that SFSU violated Dr. Abdulhadi’s academic freedom. The panel recommends that SFSU apologize to Dr. Abdulhadi and provide an alternative venue to reschedule the censored event.

Nov. 5, 2021: SFSU president Lynn Mahoney overturns the faculty panel’s decision and refuses to apologize for violating Dr. Abdulhadi’s academic freedom.

Jan. 20, 2022: The Electronic Frontier Foundation sues the State Department over its failure to respond to their request for files related to the censorship of Leila Khaled under the Freedom of Information Act.

Apr. 12, 2022: A second faculty panel at SFSU holds a grievance hearing over SFSU’s violation of Dr. Kinukawa’s academic freedom.