Wednesday, October 29, 2025
5:30-7pm
La Casa Latina - SMSU 228
1825 SW Broadway
This panel will discuss the decline of academic free speech in U.S. education. With diverse academic backgrounds and academic positions, the panelists will discuss their experiences regarding the current erosion we are directly witnessing in this country. The panel will cover: defining issues and experiences; offering how individuals have met these challenges; and offering discussion on how to address what our country, educational systems, and those who work within them, are now facing.
This is an important discussion in the era of proposed anticipatory obedience policies on “institutional speech” and the systematic silencing of perspectives that are a hallmark of a healthy academic environment through financial, political, and legal pressures.
The organizers, Reza Antoszewska and Jessica Rodriguez-JenKins, selected the following panelists to discuss a range of experiences and perspectives on free speech in academic settings: Joel Beinin, Tammy Carpenter, Marlene Eid, Suzanna Kassouf, Jennifer Ruth, and moderated by Emma Lugo.
Organizers
Reza Antoszewska:
Reza Antoszewska has spent much of her professional life working to humanize healthcare. She has now turned her energy to the plight of the Palestinian people and issues of free speech. She has held teaching positions at Northeastern University & University of South Florida. Reza is a co-organizer of Portland Area Jews of Conscience.
Jessica Rodriguez-JenKins:
Jessica Rodriguez is a full-time tenured Associate Professor in Portland State University's (PSU) School of Social Work. Jessica’s teaching focused on community organizing and liberatory healing practices for minoritized communities. A long-time advocate and grassroots organizer, she is the new Vice President of Grievances and Academic Freedom for PSU-AAUP, beginning mid July 2025.
Moderator
Emma Lugo:
Emma Lugo is a recent past president of Shir Tikva Synagogue, a past President of KBOO radio station, a longtime activist, and a core organizer for Portland Area Jews of Conscience.
Panelists
Joel Beinin:
Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus at Stanford University. He taught Middle East history at Stanford University in 1983-2006 and 2008-2019 and directed the Middle East Studies Program at the American University in Cairo in 2006-08. In 2001-02 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. He has written or edited twelve books and over fifty academic articles and book chapters. His most recent book is A Critical Political Economy of the Modern Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2020); co-edited with Bassam Haddad and Sherene Seikaly. His books on Israel/Palestine include: The Independent Left in Israel, 1967-1993: A Collection in Memory of Noam Kaminer [in Hebrew] (November Books, 2019); co-edited with Carmel Kaminer, Matan Kaminer, Smadar Nehab Kaminer, and others; The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 (Stanford University Press, 2006); co-edited with Rebecca L. Stein; Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965 (University of California Press, 1990); and Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 1989); co-edited with Zachary Lockman.
Tammy Carpenter:
Tammy Carpenter is a member of the Beaverton School District school board in Oregon, representing Zone 7. She assumed office on July 1, 2023. Her current term ends on June 30, 2027. Tammy earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993 and an M.D. from the University of Chicago in 2003. She worked as an anesthesiologist in the Portland community and served on the board of directors of her anesthesia practice. Carpenter served in leadership with the Oregon Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Marlene Eid:
Marlene Eid, graduate of the Sorbonne University, in Paris and of Portland State
University (PSU) in Portland, Oregon. She is presently a psychology faculty member at Portland Community College (PCC). Marlene is a Palestinian American born and reared in East Jerusalem, where she grew up under Israeli military occupation. She is a lifelong advocate of Palestinian human rights and a defender of social justice issues. Before PCC, Marlene worked at PSU, where besides teaching psychology and women’s studies, she worked as the coordinator of Arab Studies at the Middle East Studies Center. In 1990, Marlene traveled to the Gaza Strip and was one of the founding members of the “Gaza Community Mental Health Program in Gaza City. She developed a play therapy program for the children, training programs for the working team, and mental health training for (UNRWA) clinic doctors.
In 2015 Marlene founded and was the first president of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) chapter in Portland, Oregon. The program provided medical care and prosthetic limbs to Palestinian children with difficult cases where care could not be provided otherwise. Marlene is the producer, with Jan Haaken, of the documentary The Palestine Exception.
Suzanna Kassouf:
Suzanna Kassouf teaches social studies at Grant High School in Portland Public Schools. She is a regular contributor to Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, including co-editing the recent Rethinking Schools book Teaching Palestine and the upcoming Rethinking Schools book Teaching Environmental Justice. She regularly presents at education conferences focused on social and climate justice. In addition to her work as an educator, Kassouf is a committed activist who co-founded the youth-led climate justice organization Sunrise Movement PDX. She is a 2024-2026 Prentiss Charney Fellow.
Jennifer Ruth:
Jennifer Ruth is a professor in the School of Film at Portland State University. She writes about academic freedom and higher education in outlets such as The New Republic, Truthout, Academe, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Ms. She is the director, with Jan Haaken, of the documentary The Palestine Exception and the author or co author/ editor of four books, most recently The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom (Beacon, 2024) and It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins, 2022). Jennifer is a member of the AAUP’s Committee A (on Academic Freedom), served two years as the faculty editor of The Journal of Academic Freedom, and three years as Portland State-AAUP’s Vice President of Academic Freedom and Grievances. She is a founding member of the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed. Ruth holds a Ph.D. from Brown University.
This panel is co-sponsored by PSU-AAUP, PSUFA, SEIU Local 503, Portland Area Jews of Conscience, Rethinking Schools, Jewish Palestinian Alliance of Oregon and DSA.