West Virginia University cracks down on Jewish students to appease Muslims: advocacy group warns

Students grumbling about cafeteria food and biased professors are staples of the college experience. Add a geopolitical flash point to the mix and make students the targets of grumbling, however, and colleges may find themselves in court.

West Virginia University punished Jewish student Eliyahu Itkowitz after a cafeteria worker complained he was handing out a pro-Israel book, called campus police to remove Itkowitz from the dining hall and belatedly claimed he called her a "terrorist" after claiming he just called her "anti-Jewish," according to a civil liberties group assisting Itkowitz. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression demanded WVU "lift the no-contact order" against Itkowitz and end its "policy of investigating wholly protected expression," which has "allowed students and staff to weaponize the complaint process to silence their ideological opponents," FIRE program counsel Jessie Appleby told school President Gordon Gee on Monday. 

Appleby pointed to WVU's prior 10-month investigation of another student for "counter-protesting at pro-Palestinian demonstrations," which only ended when the student graduated. The Muslim Students Association helped instigate both probes, she said.

Rupa Marya sued the University of California for suspending and firing the UC San Francisco part-time medical professor in part because she shared her students' fears for their safety last fall after learning about a purported classmate who had "just come from Israel" and "may have been directly involved in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people."

UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, seemingly in response to Marya's post from her now-deleted X account, informed the community about "a serious matter involving the targeting of students on social media based on their national origin," said it will "not be tolerated" and that he had taken "immediate action to address this situation."

Lead singer for the band Rupa and the April Fishes, Marya is better known as the lead plaintiff in a famous class-action lawsuit over the ownership of "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics.

WVU Executive Director of Strategic Communications Shauna Johnson told Just the News it couldn't respond to queries by deadline "but we will be back in touch at a later date." UCSF did not respond to queries but told NBC News it can't comment on Marya's lawsuit due to privacy laws.

'The Zionists on campus do not get away with this behavior'

Punishing students for handing out literature on a public campus has prompted at least two successful lawsuits involving FIRE and pocket-sized U.S. Constitutions.

FIRE helped secure a $50,000 settlement with Modesto Junior College and changes to its free speech policies in 2014, and five times more from Los Angeles Community College District and similar policy changes four years later in a lawsuit over Spanish-language Constitutions.

WVU has long provoked its ire for alleged infringements such as trampling the due process rights of fraternities and vague compelled-speech requirements on new faculty hires. 

Gee is a serial president of public universities, with two terms three decades apart at WVU, but he's controversial for his loose tongue. Ohio State sanctioned Gee for referring to football rival Notre Dame as "those damn Catholics," prompting his hasty exit in 2013.

Cafeteria worker Hannah Harper filed her first complaint against Itkowitz with both campus police and the diversity, equity and inclusion office on Dec. 13, 2024, for giving her an "anti-muslim book." He was handing out the Alan Dershowitz book "The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies" as part of his "mandated community service," according to Appleby's legal warning letter to Gee. 

Harper said she recognized him because of warnings from the Muslim Students Association, apparently referring to a social media blast from MSA in October that depicted Itkowitz, claimed he had "verbally harassed our Muslim sisters" and told members to report such people to campus police if they feel "uncomfortable" or harassed.

MSA targeted Itkowitz "after he expressed disagreement with the slogans MSA members were painting on signs," Appleby told Gee.

"The Zionists on campus do not get away with this behavior," MSA President Omar Sabbagh wrote in the blast. "We have had one individual arrested for vandalizing MSA property, and another individual charged with disruption, and has left WVU completely," he said, which FIRE told Gee referred to the counterprotester previously investigated by WVU.

Harper filed her second complaint Jan. 11 when Itkowitz showed up in the cafeteria after winter break, according to Appleby. Itkowitz started recording after the manager told him to leave, based on Harper's claim he had been "barred" from the cafeteria, and Harper called campus police as Itkowitz ate with his friends.

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Muslim student group at West Virginia University targets pro-Israel student Eliyahu Itkowitz after an argument.

West Virginia University Muslim Students Association

The incident reports obtained by FIRE say police "closed the case without an investigation" and could not find "any documentation indicating Itkowitz was banned from the dining hall."

Harper's police and DEI complaints claimed Itkowitz wasn't allowed in the cafeteria and that he called her "anti-Jewish … racially inappropriate things" and generally harangued her while she was working, FIRE said. Witnesses who were present didn't corroborate her claims and did not "recall seeing Itkowitz interact with Harper at all."

For the first time in her January complaint, Harper claimed she "overheard Itkowitz say to his friend while walking past her" in November — before the book incident — that he didn't know WVU lets "terrorists work here."

WVU should have known from the start that Harper's allegations "describe conduct clearly protected by the First Amendment" and that investigating Itkowitz and issuing a no-contact order, even without further punishment, "were unnecessary and chilling," Appleby said.

It has no reason to notify a speaker if WVU conducts a "preliminary internal review" and determines the speech is protected, and should reserve no-contact orders for when students are found responsible for misconduct, "there is a concern for the complainant’s safety" or on a "short-term emergency basis" before adjudication.

San Francisco Democratic state senator allegedly got her 'doxxed'

Marya's X post last fall about the new UCSF student from Israel came at a bad time for the UC's health sciences campus and associated health centers, whose federal funding was newly at risk for "ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic harassment and intimidation," as claimed by the GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee.

San Francisco Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, co-chair of the Legislature's Jewish Caucus, also called out Marya for "creating a toxic, hostile environment." The San Francisco Chronicle paraphrased him as saying Marya already has a reputation for posting antisemitic content, such as claiming "Jewish doctors harm patients."

Her lawsuit says UC violated Marya's First Amendment rights in her statements "made as a private citizen" and "in the course of her duties," including her advocacy for the Palestinians "currently experiencing genocide and ethnic cleansing by Israel." It recounts her professional qualifications, accolades and humanitarian work in the Bay Area and internationally.

Marya's X posts on Israel-Palestine aim to "bring texture to an increasingly politicized and polarized debate," and they "take aim at state policy and supremacist political ideologies" including antisemitism, not religious or ethnic groups, the suit says. It repeatedly emphasizes she never targeted the Jewish religion or people.

She started receiving "harassing messages from a UCSF colleague in her direct messages" following Israel's response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on civilians, and Executive Vice Chancellor Catherine Lucey "interrogat[ed]" Marya on her day off about her posts.

The suit portrays university leadership as indifferent as Marya endured a barrage of threats for her anti-Israel advocacy, contrary to when officials "pro-actively and quickly responded" to threats against her in 2020 for posts against police violence —"disparate treatment" she emphasized when UCSF opened a probe of her social media activity.

Sen. Wiener emerges as a secondary villain in the suit, portrayed as serially misrepresenting Marya's posts "in coordination with others" and getting her "doxxed" by the pro-Israel antisemitism watchdog Canary Mission, which receives funding from the "largest donor to UCSF and the entire University of California."