Siena College says it has rescinded an invitation to a doctor from California who had been scheduled to deliver its annual Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King Lecture on Race and Nonviolent Social Change.
The private college in Loudonville says Dr. Rupa Marya of the University of California at San Francisco was scheduled to speak about decolonizing medicine on March 13. But the college says recent comments by Marya about the Israel-Hamas war have gone too far, citing a recent post that said “the presence of Zionism in U.S. medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity.”
College President Chuck Seifert says a review of Marya’s “anti-Israel” rhetoric shows she “dangerously conflates all Jewish people with a particular political ideology, as well as a racist trope.”
Seifert says while Siena encourages free speech and opposing views, bigotry does not align with its values. WAMC has requested comment from Marya.
