The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is complaining that several photographs from a school event earlier this year were removed from Flickr, the online photo-sharing platform. These photos reportedly depicted medical students wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Middle Eastern headscarves.
The SJP chapter also alleged that the Feinberg School of Medicine’s official Instagram account removed other photos featuring Arab students, and in response issued an open letter to the school’s administration, demanding a public apology and a thorough investigation into the matter.
JSP complained angrily about the medical school’s career-salvaging move: “After 10 months of viewing the live-streamed genocide of their people, Palestinian medical students and their families are not allowed to celebrate their achievements in public without being targeted by their own administration.”
Northwestern University spokesperson Hilary Hurd Anyaso said the photos were deleted to safeguard students from doxing (publicly providing personally identifiable information about a person or a group), “Student safety is our highest priority at Feinberg and Northwestern. We are proud of Feinberg’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
Northwestern University Medical School was renamed the Feinberg School of Medicine in 2002, in gratitude for a $75 million donation from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation. Reuben Feinberg started to donate to the university after being hospitalized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for a heart attack. The first donation, in 1988, was for $17 million to establish the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute. A $10 million donation was subsequently sent in 1996 to establish the Frances Evelyn Feinberg Clinical Neurosciences Institute.
