U of A suspends two education professors over Israel-Hamas comments

Two college of education professors at the University of Arizona have been suspended with pay for the rest of the semester after a student released audio recordings of a classroom discussion about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Professors Rebecca Lopez, director of the early childhood education program, and Rebecca Zapien, community liaison, are being investigated by the university while they are suspended. They were teaching a class called cultural pluralism for young children when the audio was recorded.

The audio clips were shared by the X (formerly Twitter) account @IsraelWarRoom, a pro-Israel platform with more than 260,000 followers.

“In an education class at (the UA), these professors chose to discuss the current Israel-Gaza war and the broader Israeli/Palestinian conflict,” the tweet reads. “What was shared was an entirely BIASED, ANTISEMITIC, BLATANTLY FALSE, and TERRORISM-SUPPORTING narrative.”

Posted in the thread were recordings of Lopez and Zapien speaking about the conflict. At one point, they conflated Hamas to the Black Panther party in the United States. In another, they shared ways students could boycott Israel.

The pro-Israel account ended the thread with a message directly for UA President Robert Robbins.

“Your professors are gaslighting Jewish students, endorsing terrorism, and spreading blatantly false information,” the tweet read. “We DEMAND you do something about it.”

In a statement to the Arizona Daily Star, UA spokeswoman Pam Scott wrote that “the college and university will determine how to proceed after they have completed an ongoing investigation.”

She added that “in the meantime, alternative instructors will be taking on responsibilities for the course in question.”

Alex Morey, the director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said her organization has seen a dramatic increase in students and professors sharing pro-Palestinian viewpoints being punished by their colleges and universities.

“There are many polarized debates right now but almost no debate is more polarizing than Israel-Palestine,” she said. “These debates are getting to core identities, core rights, and people are feeling really fired up about these issues because the outcomes impact their core identities and rights.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE, has reached out to both Lopez and Zapien but has not heard back, Morey said Wednesday.

“This is a situation where we need to know more about what was on the syllabus for this class,” she said. “Is talking about this issue something that would be relevant to the coursework?”

Because she has not been in contact with either of the professors, Morey said it is hard to determine whether being immediately put on suspension was a just sentencing from university officials.

“I’m curious why administrators jumped to a suspension here,” she said. “Even if they think that this crossed the line and these professors had a real substantial digression their class, is it reasonable to suspend them?”

Maha Nassar, the faculty advisor for the Students for Justice in Palestine group, says it was not.

“This suspension, which was enacted without due process, sends a chilling message to UA students, staff and faculty who believe in Palestinian freedom, dignity and human rights,” she said.

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Education students themselves were mixed in their reactions to the recorded lecture. Samantha Paredes, a senior in the college of education who was not present in the class recorded but did engage in a separate class discussion about the conflict with Lopez, said she was “really disappointed” that someone had recorded the lecture.

“I was just really disgusted and really sad to see how some people are utilizing their privilege and their wealth and power in the country to punish others because they don’t agree with what they’re saying,” Paredes said.

Paredes and her classmate Dominique Barnes, also a senior, said these conversations are student led and just based on background to the issue. It’s important to discuss, they both agreed, because they need to prepare to teach students of all backgrounds.

“We are educators, and we are working with children,” Barnes said. “As educators, we don’t get to pick and choose where our children in class come from.”

Both Paredes and Barnes said they were nervous to participate in future discussions of real-world issues for fear they might be recorded in the same way.

“It’s crazy to see the power that a recording can hold, especially if it’s taken out of context,” Barnes said. “Are we going to be able to have these genuine learning moments?”

But for some, sharing the contents of the classroom discussion was important. Avery Garnets, a sophomore in the college of education who was not present for the class, said it was “honestly outraging to hear the recording.”

“The professors are spoon feeding lies to their students and the students are blindly accepting these lies to be facts,” she said.

Garnets said she doesn’t feel safe as a Jewish student on the UA campus with this rhetoric being spread. Though she did not like hearing the recording, it affirmed the way she’s felt about being Jewish on campus lately.

“I do not wear my Star of David necklace because my parents have begged me not to,” she said. “I even started tearing up and had to walk out of class once because I was at a table with a group of students talking about their backgrounds and I was too scared to share with them that I am Jewish.”

University officials have not said when their investigation into Lopez and Zapien will conclude. Even if the professors are reinstated in their roles, Barnes, the senior education student, said she has lost some of her faith in the college.

“I really valued the college of education,” Barnes reflected, sitting on the lawn outside of the college’s main building. She glanced up at the towering brick walls. “Now that completely changed for me because they weren’t supportive of our professors.”

Social media has undoubtedly impacted the sanctity of the college classroom, according to Morey, the director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE.

“The social media world has changed the classroom fundamentally,” she said. “It’s basically taken down the four walls of the classroom that historically existed and made what faculty and even fellow students say in class potentially available to the rest of the world.”

Her statement rings true at the UA. Earlier this year, a faculty member in the college of nursing stepped down after a student shared a slide about gender affirming care she presented to the class. The photo ended up being shared on multiple conservative social media platforms and was even retweeted by Elon Musk.