Credit: UBC SPPH alumni and current students, GS4P
Students at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) have released a statement in support of Dr. Sean Tucker, who was recently removed as the incoming OEH Leadership professor.[1][2] In their statement, SPPH students share experiences of censorship at SPPH regarding discussions on Israel’s genocidal destruction of Palestine’s public health system—an issue central to public health education. They call on SPPH and UBC leadership to uphold academic freedom and their responsibility to provide essential education for public health professionals.[3] You can read the full statement below.
On January 25, 2025, this statement was emailed to UBC President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Benoit-Antoine Bacon; UBC-Vancouver Provost and Vice-President, Academic, Dr. Gage Averill; Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Dermot Kelleher; and Director, School of Population and Public Health, Dr. Aslam Anis to ensure their awareness and urge them to act. The Faculty of Medicine REDI Office and UBC’s Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion, Dr. Arig al Shaibah, were cc’d.
Statement on Silence at SPPH: Student Experience
We write to you as former and current students of UBC’s School of Population and Public Health (SPPH), who studied there while Dr. Sean Tucker was a professor. During this time we witnessed and experienced first-hand the culture of silence at SPPH and the chilling effect that has been pervasive across UBC-Vancouver, on the topic of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Not only did SPPH remain silent, but the School did not provide any resources to students who may have been directly impacted by these events happening overseas. The complete silence and lack of care at SPPH have been clear.
Gaza’s healthcare system has been destroyed. According to the United Nations, there have been more than 800 healthcare workers killed in Gaza.[4] Israel’s bombings have partially or completely destroyed all hospitals, universities, and other critical public infrastructure. Currently, Gaza is dealing with a severe water and sanitation crisis, resulting from attacks and destruction of over 70% of sewage pumps and sanitation facilities.[5] Infectious diseases are spreading rapidly, including the poliovirus. Famine and child malnutrition are widespread. Israel’s blockades limit the entry of food and essential medical supplies, including anesthetics and maternity kits.[6] Despite a well-functioning healthcare system before this most recent siege on Gaza, over the past year, it has become regular practice for women to give birth or have C-sections in unsanitary conditions with no pain relief or anaesthetic. The result? A recent article in the Lancet details “a surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths” and “an unprecedented rise in miscarriages and stillbirths."[7] Although not an exhaustive list, these are all critical aspects of public health and extremely relevant to our education and the work of future and current public health professionals.
UBC is a school that purportedly values academic freedom, which according to UBC protects members of the university “within the law, to pursue what seems to them as fruitful avenues of inquiry, to teach and to learn unhindered by external or non-academic constraints, and to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion."[8] Therefore, the direct silencing on issues about Palestine suppresses academic freedom and undermines one of the primary functions of the university.
We add our voice in support of Dr. Tucker, in light of his recent removal from the role of professor for SPPH 526 for Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (OEH) students, joining over 250 student, Independent Jewish Voices UBC, and University of Toronto Public Health 4 Palestine.[9][10][11] We recognize the importance of amplifying the experiences of faculty, staff, and students at SPPH who have been silenced or intimidated based on their efforts to advance conversations and educational opportunities about the public health crisis unfolding across Palestine for the world to see. We as students have firsthand experienced the chilling effect at SPPH through some of the following events (acknowledging that these examples represent only a portion of the broader range of student experiences).
Instances of the chill at SPPH and UBC:
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Professors teaching about past public health and healthcare crises while neglecting to discuss the Gaza genocide, despite students in their classes trying to initiate conversations about the genocide in discussion posts related to weekly course content.
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SPPH’s consistent refusal to sponsor or allow advertisements for educational events happening on campus about the ongoing crisis in Gaza, including those specifically led by students and faculty at SPPH.
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SPPH’s Senior Management adopted a Bulletin Board Policy, in September 2024, disallowing postings in which “particular beliefs or viewpoints are promoted”, seemingly censoring any political, religious, or cultural messaging on the community bulletin board. This was implemented without consultation with students, staff, or faculty at-large.
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There have been no educational initiatives led by the School’s leadership or by the School as a whole to teach students about this extreme public health crisis and its social, political, and economic causes and effects.
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Learning, through conversations with faculty, that they had received communications from senior leadership not to discuss the topic of Palestine and ‘Israel’ in their classrooms.
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Complete lack of acknowledgement for or support offered to students personally affected by the genocide and war, or the wider community witnessing it live on social media.
As a consequence of all of these factors, there was no space or time given for students to learn about or discuss the genocide that is unfolding daily, which we witness on our phones outside of class. We could never broach this topic while we attended classes at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, despite the need to process what we are witnessing and its relevance to population and public health.
At SPPH we are taught about social determinants of health - described broadly as the conditions within which we are born, live, and die. In fact, over the past year, SPPH has begun developing a Division of Global Health. And yet, as students who should be critically interrogating the social determinants of health both locally and globally, we were silenced, dismissed, and chastised for our attempts to invoke critical discussions of colonialism, violence, and genocide, which we were witnessing daily, while surrounded by an academic environment which acted as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. This is a manifestation of the Palestine exception to free speech, which refers to the consistent and selective censorship and silencing of human rights advocacy and education on the topic of Palestine.
Rather than fulfilling its responsibility to be a leader in public health education, UBC’s SPPH, whether formally or not, appears to have adopted a policy of silencing and censorship that has limited freedom of expression and learning on the topics of Palestine, the apartheid state of Israel, the ongoing genocide, and the public health crisis. The School has limited our education on topics of global health, determinants of health, public health, humanitarian relief, and health policy, failing students in the promise and responsibility to train us for ongoing and future challenges in population and public health.
Not only has SPPH silenced and censored student efforts to engage with critical education on the crisis in Gaza, but the School continues to suppress dialogue within its community. Dr. Tucker was one of a few faculty members who sought to create respectful and intentional learning opportunities about the Gaza genocide for SPPH students, staff, and faculty. His removal as the upcoming OEH Leadership professor deprives students of a rare and vital source of support—a faculty member within the School of Population and Public Health willing to challenge censorship and ensure critical information about the devastating public health crisis in Gaza is shared.
As emerging public health professionals, it is imperative to have role models who practice the values of health equity and human rights — principles that SPPH is quick to speak of but fails to uphold.
Sincerely,
SPPH alumni and current students
Letter from Dr. Sean Tucker to UBC Administration on his dismissal ↩︎
UN expert shocked by death of another Palestinian doctor in Israeli detention ↩︎
Infectious diseases are being allowed to run rampant in Gaza ↩︎
Anesthetics, crutches, dates. Inside Israel’s ghost list of items arbitrarily denied entry into Gaza ↩︎
Letter of support for Dr. Sean Tucker addressed to UBC President, Provost, and Dean of Medicine ↩︎