Executive Committee of the Legislative Assembly

National Communication Association (NCA)

Cc: Executive Director, NCA

November 21, 2023

Dear colleagues,

We are writing this email to express our deep concern about the censorship of the speech of Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb, Professor of media studies at California State University, San Bernardino, to be delivered as part of the Presidential Address at the National Communication Association Convention on November 18, 2023.

In preparing for the event, Professor Muhtaseb sent her speech in English to the NCA President on November 13, and no objections or concerns were raised regarding her speech.

On November 18, when Professor Muhtaseb went to rehearse her speech at the venue, she was told that her speech is not acceptable because of the use of terms such as “genocide” and “colonization,” noting that this might cause damage to the reputation of the organization. Once the other speakers scheduled to speak in the session as part of the Presidential address learned that Professor Muhtaseb’s performance was being censored, they refused to speak. They instead attempted to go on stage in protest of the censorship as a sign of solidarity with Professor Muhtaseb. They were told that they would be taken down by security. When speakers and event attendees walked out of the room and started chanting outside the room in protest, NCA-hired security disrupted their performance multiple times.

We are deeply concerned about this gross violation of participants’ academic freedom and freedom of expression at an academic conference, paradoxically organized around the theme of “Freedom.” We are especially concerned that NCA has upheld and perpetuated strategies of Zionism and Islamophobia by silencing Palestinians who are witnessing the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Whereas on one hand, NCA has taken vitally important steps to challenge the whiteness of the field and affirms its commitment to free speech, on the other hand, responses such as the one demonstrated on November 18 reinforce the fundamental infrastructures of whiteness that perpetuate disciplinary erasures when voices from the margins speak out against white supremacy, colonization, and settler colonial genocide. Viewpoint-neutrality is central to academic freedom. We do not believe it was respected here. Instead, the perspectives of one group were silenced. 

In light of the events of November 18 and the serious concerns they raise, we ask that the following be done immediately: 

a) NCA investigates its processes around free speech, particularly speech from the margins; b) NCA investigates the processes of decision-making that led to the censorship of Professor Muhtaseb, and offer a public account of the decision-making processes; 

c) NCA issues  an apology to Professor Ahlam Muhtaseb and to the participants on the panel; 

d) NCA creates processes to make sure such censorship of free speech and academic freedom doesn’t happen at NCA going forward; and 

e) NCA provides an opportunity to publicly platform the work of scholars who were deplatformed, after seeking their consent.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Yours sincerely,

Reham H. Bohamad, Kuwait University

Bernadette M Calafell, Gonzaga University

Karma R. Chávez, University of Texas at Austin

Mohan J. Dutta, Massey University

Bryan J. McCann, Louisiana State University

Srividya Ramasubramanian, Syracuse University