On March 13, 2024, we sent legal correspondence (Hebrew) to the President and Rector of the Hebrew University following the decision to suspend Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian from teaching, after harsh remarks she made in an interview. In our correspondence, Attorney Tal Hassin argued that the professor's remarks, outrageous and infuriating as they may be, do not negate the right to freedom of expression and academic freedom, and that her hasty suspension contradicts the provisions of the disciplinary code for academic employees, which outline the legal procedure for suspending a faculty member.
We mentioned in the correspondence that freedom of expression protects not only consensus positions, which are easy to hear and explain - they do not need protection. Freedom of expression applies mainly to unusual, outrageous and angry opinions expressed against the background of events. They argued that the university was entitled to convey the message that Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian's remarks were not of its opinion and did not reflect the position of its leaders, but that the manner in which the message was conveyed – the complete condemnation of all its positions, the opening of a platform for lashing out at her, and her suspension – violated its right to due process and contradicted the legal procedure for punishing faculty members, which is enshrined in the disciplinary code of academic employees.