USACBI condemns CNN’s decision to cut ties with Dr Marc Lamont Hill and we call for his immediate reinstatement as a political commentator for the network.   

On November 29, 2018, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Professor Marc Lamont Hill gave a speech at the United Nations in which he called for equality and freedom for Palestinians from the river to the sea.  Ignoring the context of his speech, which very clearly advocated for Palestinian human rights, Zionist organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), leveled an accusation of anti-Semitism against Professor Hill because he used the phrase “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”  

Nothing in Dr Hill’s speech at the UN so much as hints at anti-Semitism.  He has produced a tremendously valuable body of work, easily accessible online, that upholds precisely the opposite.  He has been a lifelong champion of human rights, and he speaks persistently against bigotry, including racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, transphobia, and all forms of discrimination.

We reject this slander against an individual of integrity and moral footing, who has consistently demonstrated his commitment to universal human dignity.  

USACBI is also aware of a campaign to pressure Temple University, where Hill teaches, to also fire him from his faculty position there.  We applaud Temple University’s statement acknowledging Professor Hill’s “constitutionally protected right to express his opinion,” and we would add that his speech is protected under basic AAUP principles of academic freedom.

We reiterate our demand to CNN for Professor Hill’s immediate reinstatement, and we ask supporters to sign a petition to that effect.  It is simply unconscionable that a principled call for simple justice and freedom for the Palestinian people, which are their entitlements under international law, should be met with such swift repudiation from a public media outlet like CNN.