Skip to main content
Counsel for Dr. Yasmeen Hanoosh, the Portland State University professor who in June was placed on administrative leave after she was shown in a video saying, “I am Hamas. We are all Hamas,” filed a notice of her intent to sue the university on Wednesday.
The tort claim notice alleges the university violated Hanoosh’s legal rights, including state laws prohibiting discrimination based on national origin and the First Amendment. It argues that Hanoosh, a recognized scholar of Iraqi studies, was acting in her personal capacity on June 2 when she was at a rally to support a Beaverton School Board member, who was under investigation after posting on her personal social media account that Israel should “stop the genocide” in Gaza.
After that meeting ended, Hanoosh engaged with a group of men in a heated discussion, according to the notice, where she asked them if they “believed that Palestinian children had a right to live.” One of the men responded to that question, the tort claim alleges, by asking her “What do you know about Hamas?”
Hanoosh was responding sarcastically to that question, the tort claim notice says, when she said, “I am Hamas.” She was captured on recording without her consent, the notice alleges, and “the instigator’s question and the broader context of the interaction was edited down to a 5-second clip,” which led to a “harassment campaign” that sought Hanoosh’s firing from the university, it continues.
What happened after is where PSU comes in. On June 6, university president Ann Cudd condemned the remarks and said the university is actively investigating the incident, writing in part that PSU stands “unequivocally against antisemitism, terrorism, and hate of any kind.”
That investigation is still ongoing.
A PSU spokesperson said the university could not comment on a potential legal action.
Hanoosh’s attorneys allege that Cudd’s condemnation of the remarks effectively revealed Hanoosh’s identity.
“Most people, including those who have harassed and threatened Dr. Hanoosh, would not have known that Dr. Hanoosh was the person in the video had President Cudd not released and disseminated that statement tying the person in the video to a ‘PSU professor,” the tort claim notice reads. “This reckless, false, and defamatory conduct has endangered Dr. Hanoosh and caused irreparable harm to her personal safety and career.”
The tort claim further alleges that no one from PSU reached out to Hanoosh in the aftermath of receiving the video.
Hanoosh’s attorneys dispute that Hanoosh was engaging in antisemitism, terrorism, or hate speech with her remarks.
“President Cudd readily drew upon pervasive racist tropes against Arabs and Muslims to make an interpretation that was both out of context and tainted the well by interpreting the incident prior to an investigation,” they wrote, adding Hanoosh has been an “avowed pacifist.”
The tort claim asserts that Hanoosh’s remark was sarcastic, not part of any sort of public event and “exchanged between two private citizens in a one-on-one conversation,” making it “protected and unobjectionable.”
Hanoosh, they added, had been repeatedly targeted by faculty on the PSU campus who were in support of Israel and the “genocide in Gaza.” Those faculty have faced no repercussion, the claim alleges. Hanoosh may seek economic, non-economic, and punitive damages, and injunctive and declarative relief.
