NYU Langone fired him for his anti-Hamas posts. He sues.

A prominent doctor is suing NYU Langone Health after he was fired as director of the cancer center over his social media posts about the war between Israel and Hamas.

The lawsuit could put NYU Langone — a major hospital in New York — at the center of a national debate about how much power private institutions have to fire employees for their online posts.

Laws that protect employees from being fired for what they say or do outside the office vary widely by state. In New York the law is somewhat unclear, say lawyers. But as tensions and protests escalate over violence in the Middle East, the question of what kind of speech is protected or acceptable has roiled American businesses and campuses.

The wrongful termination case was filed by Dr. Benjamin Neel, a cancer biologist whose lab at NYU was Langone conducts research about breast cancer, ovarian cancer and treatments for leukemia. Before he was fired, Dr. Neel reposted a variety of anti-Hamas political cartoons, including two with offensive caricatures of the Arab people, and posts on the social media platform Gaza by Israel’s brutal bombing campaign.

He is far from the first person to lose his job for his public responses to Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, or Israel’s subsequent airstrikes and invasion of Gaza. Journalists have lost their jobs and vacancies for law students have been withdrawn. Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, says it has received more than 80 requests for help in firing people since October 7.

Several doctors have also lost their jobs or been suspended because of statements about the war. A pediatric cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital was placed on leave after being accused of calling Palestinians “bloodthirsty, morally depraved animals” in online posts. according to a news report. He later wrote to his colleagues an apology for what he said were “regrettable, hurtful messages.” a local news report.

An emergency room doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital, on the Upper East Side, was fired after being discharged accused of posting “Zionist settlers get a taste of their own medicine” after the October 7 attacks. The doctor declined to comment.

Dr. Neel is one of two doctors that NYU Langone has removed from online publications since the war began last month. The first, Dr. Zaki Masoud, an intern at NYU Langone Hospital in Mineola, Long Island, was “removed from duty,” according to the hospital, after he was accused of posting on Instagram in defense of the Hamas attack.

An online petition calling on the hospital to change course and allow Dr. Masoud’s appointment has yielded 89,000 signatures. He could not be reached for comment.

Dr. Neel’s lawsuit, filed last week in Manhattan State Supreme Court, alleges that NYU Langone feared a backlash following Dr. Masoud’s firing and therefore decided to fire Dr. Neel as well – in an “ill-considered scheme to appearance of equality.”

Dr. Neel claims that an executive vice president of the hospital told Dr. Neel said his online posts “made it difficult” to justify the resignations of others, such as Dr. Masoud, justifiable. “Dr. Neel was sacrificed as a sacrificial lamb,” the complaint alleges.

According to the lawsuit, most of the social media posts in question were reposts of political cartoons. One of the cartoons targets Western defenders of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The cartoon shows a protest where demonstrators hold up signs justifying torture and rape. Another cartoon questions whether negotiating a two-state solution is feasible if Hamas is in power. Dr. Neel also shared a post questioning the accuracy of a list of about 7,000 people the Hamas-led Health Ministry said had been killed in Gaza during Israel’s bombing campaign.

Dr. Neel is still a professor at NYU Langone Health and oversees a laboratory, but he was fired as director of the hospital’s Perlmutter Cancer Center — cutting his hospital salary by about two-thirds, his attorney said. , said Milton Williams.

The research of Dr. Neel has focused on communication between healthy cells and “how this is disrupted in cancer,” his lawyer said. As director of the cancer center, he supervised more than a thousand employees, according to his lawyer.

The lawsuit claims that Dr. Neel was told that his social media posts were considered an “intentional violation” of NYU Langone’s Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy and that he did not meet “the standards expected of a physician in a leadership role.” and had damaged the hospital’s reputation.

“Since last month, we have reminded all employees multiple times of our high standards, as well as our code of conduct and social media policies,” NYU Langone said in a statement in response to the lawsuit. “Nevertheless, Dr. Ben Neel, as leader of our institution, these standards in a series of public posts on social media and later closed his Twitter/X account. NYU Langone supports our decision and looks forward to defending it in court.”

The lawsuit of Dr. Neel claims that supporting Israel is part of his Jewish identity. NYU Langone’s decision to punish him for his online posts amounts to religious discrimination, the lawsuit alleges.

In addition to accusing NYU Langone of discrimination, the lawsuit also claims that New York law protects employees from being fired for social media outside of work hours — a questionable claim.

A few states, such as Connecticut, have limited employers’ ability to fire employees for their opinions or speech. Employee protections in New York are more limited, but one safeguard is a law that prohibits employers from firing people for “legal recreational activities.” The law that began as a bill is intended to protect cigarette smokers are not fired for tobacco use, ultimately provides broader protection. The law mentions some examples of legal recreational activities: sports, hobbies, exercise, reading, watching television.

But recreation is “very subjective,” says attorney Joseph Pace has written about the issueand the New York courts have said little about online activity. “At this time it is an open question whether blogging and tweeting will be considered a protected ‘recreational activity,’” Mr. Pace wrote in an email.

The lawsuit could put NYU Langone under scrutiny in the expanding debate.

Dr.’s files Neel included several emails expressing pro-Israel views sent to top officials at NYU Langone, disparaging other universities across the country for the way they responded to student protests and demands related to the war.

In one email, a top hospital official wrote something insulting about Harvard’s president. In another email, Dr. Robert Grossman, former hospital director, Stanford a piece of feces and said the University of Pennsylvania was “similarly fertile.”

Dr. Grossman — who is such an important figure at the hospital that the New York University medical school is named after him — also seemed to suggest that NYU students who protested against Israel should be punished. “They should have their scholarships revoked,” Dr. wrote. Grossman in October in a message to Dr. Neel.

Dr Neel’s lawyer, Mr Williams, said his client’s online posts were “tepid” compared to the views shared by some hospital leaders in their emails. “Grossman suggested they take away scholarships, while Ben merely challenged those who celebrate the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians,” he said.

In a statement, NYU Langone said that Dr. Neel’s only reason to share those emails was that he was “lashing out at being held accountable.”

“The emails referenced in the lawsuit were from colleagues and Dr. Neel is now making them public in an attempt to put pressure on NYU Langone,” the statement said.