Donate to Professor Rabab Abdulhadi's legal defense fund to support her as she continues to to face attacks for her scholarship and activism supporting justice in/for Palestine.

In June 2017, the right-wing and Israel-aligned Lawfare Project filed a frivolous lawsuit against SFSU and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, attempting to use the courts to silence scholarship and activism for Palestine.

The court dismissed the lawsuit in March 2018 for failing to make a single legitimate claim. “Out of an abundance of caution,” the court gave Lawfare a chance to fix the complaint and provided very specific instructions. Lawfare ignored the court’s instructions and re-filed its lawsuit. Dr. Abdulhadi’s laywers once again asked the judge to dismiss the case. On October 29th, 2018, Judge William Orrick III finally dismissed Lawfare’s case with prejudice, meaning the lawsuit cannot be filed again. Judge Orrick repeatedly emphasized that the Lawfare Project’s complaint is “devoid” of facts alleging discrimination. He wrote, “Absolutely no facts have been alleged to support their mere assertion of differential treatment (discrimination).”

Although this signifies a historic victory against the well-funded Israel lobby, the Lawfare cases are part of a larger pattern of harassment toward student and faculty activists on campus. These cases were not the first time Professor Abdulhadi has been under attack.

Since 2010, Dr. Abdulhadi has been working as a one-person program, acting as  the only faculty and staff of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program, while simultaneously fighting against overt and covert manifestations of Islamophobia and racism against Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians on SFSU campus. SFSU has failed to adequately provide funding, resources, and staff to the program they asked Professor Abdulhadi to spearhead back in 2007, leaving her to pick up all the slack. Over the past year, the SFSU campus has been subjected to multiple attacks by David Horowitz who has been identified as a, “driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black movements” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On October 14, 2016 and May 3, 2017, students found, in plain view, dozens of racist, bullying posters that target student advocates for justice in/for Palestine, including members of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program, the only program focusing on Arab and Muslim communities in the US and center social justice and Palestinian history, culture and social movements.

They disagreed with her work on Palestine, so they plastered posters across campus calling her a terrorist and a Jew-hater.

One year later, the SFSU administration has yet to respond to protect Dr. Abdulhadi and the targeted students. It's right to have the freedom to advocate for justice in/for Palestine. It's right to feel safe on campus. But it's wrong to call someone a terrorist or an anti-Semite because you don't agree with them. It's wrong to intimidate students. It's wrong to stop education.

These relentless bullying attacks by several right-wing pro-Israel groups such as David Horowitz, Canary Mission, AMCHA, Campus Watch, Stand With US, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Middle East Forum and the Zionist Organization of America are deliberate. They seek to smear Dr. Abdulhadi’s reputation and damage her standing as a scholar, teacher and public intellectual and destroy the AMED Studies program in the process.

Professor Abdulhadi has filed several grievances against San Francisco State University for the hostile and unsafe work and study environment for Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs on campus. The grievances were filed in March of 2017 and will soon move into the hearing phase. 

Your generous donation will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians on SFSU’s campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction.

Your generous donation will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians on SFSU’s campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction. All donations will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians on SFSU’s campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction.

SFSU Administration needs to fulfill its commitment to Dr. Abdulhadi and AMED communities and institutionally support the building of the AMED Studies program as a viable and stable program to educate the university community on and off campus and challenge Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians on SFSU campus.

Without institutional support from San Francisco State University, we will need your help now more than ever. Your generous donation will contribute to the legal defense fund against Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination and hostility to Palestinians at SFSU campus and to supporting the AMED Studies program against destruction.