U.S. Further Stifles Academic Freedom Against Anti-Zionist Views

WASHINGTON (KI) – Maura Finkelstein, a Jewish professor at Muhlenberg College in the U.S., has been dismissed from her position due to her anti-Zionist social media posts.

She argued that her termination set a dangerous precedent for higher education and freedom of speech in the U.S.
Finkelstein, who taught anthropology and offered courses on Palestine at the college in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for nine years, described herself as “an anti-Zionist Jew fighting for Palestinian liberation.”
She discussed with Anadolu how she became anti-Zionist, circumstances surrounding her dismissal and the growing pressures on academic freedom in the U.S.
Despite growing up in a Zionist family, her perspective changed during a classroom debate about the Oslo Peace Accords. She was assigned to represent Palestine.
“I had only ever been taught about Israel. And all of a sudden, I had this incredible opportunity to learn about Palestine, and I took it very seriously,” she said. “And what I learned was that the myth of Israel circulated in the United States, the myth of Israel that, Jews in the United States and across the world, celebrated in the wake of the Holocaust, was complete fiction, and that actually it was a colonial project in which Palestinians were experiencing genocide and dispossession because of this entity that was Israel.”
Finkelstein said she began facing pressure from pro-Israel donors at her school after Oct. 7, 2023. Finkelstein faced three months of extensive investigations into her teaching, research, and publications. But no violations were found.
The incident that led to her termination occurred in January, when she shared on Instagram a post by Palestinian poet Rami Kanazi that said: “Do not normalize Zionism.” A student leader at Hillel, a Zionist organization on campus, filed a complaint, claiming that Finkelstein’s anti-Zionist views made the student feel unsafe in class and violated anti-discrimination policies.
“I had never met this student,” said Finkelstein. On Jan. 24, the school decided to terminate her employment without compensation.
Her dismissal is under appeal.
Regarding the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, Finkelstein remarked, “We have two politicians who have both been very clear about wanting to continue genocide,” as she urged structural changes to the U.S. political system.
“We need to break down this two-party system that basically creates a hostage situation with voters every four years. There is no good outcome to this election, and I hope that it leads to some kind of larger social uprising shift that can reframe the way in which we think about politics in this country.”