Anna Feder worked at Emerson College in Boston for 17 years. For 12 of them, she ran the school’s exhibitions and festivals program and curated the Bright Lights Cinema Series, which screened documentaries about liberation struggles, social justice, and marginalized communities.

According to a civil lawsuit filed by Feder against the college this week, the school administration never interfered with her programming until 2023, when she scheduled a screening of the film “Israelism,” a documentary by Jewish filmmakers about young American Jews coming to reject Zionism. Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Emerson leadership pressured Feder to cancel the planned November screening.