Judge orders Texas State to rehire professor fired over viral Gaza panel

In a win for academic freedom and the First Amendment, a district court in Texas has ordered that Idris Robinson, a professor terminated for speaking at a contentious event about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, must get his job back as his court case proceeds.

The district court said Robinson was fired for “exercising his First Amendment rights despite being recommended for re-appointment,” adding that the university admitted, “and the timeline confirms, that Dr. Robinson’s speech motivated [the] decision not to renew his contract.” Robinson will now be re-employed by the university while his court case plays out.

The story of Robinson’s termination at Texas State seems to be an unfortunately common one. Over the past couple of years, there has been a spate of firings for speech about hot-button political topics like the war in Gaza or the murder of Charlie Kirk. 

In Robinson’s case, Texas State told him in July 2025 that his contract would not be renewed after he gave a talk about Palestinian resistance at a panel that descended into violence. Except the talk took place nearly a year before Texas State effectively fired him, hundreds of miles from campus in North Carolina. It only became an issue in 2025 because a video of the talk went viral on Instagram.

In 2024, Robinson delivered the talk, “Strategic Lessons on the Palestinian Resistance,” at the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB) in Asheville, North Carolina. During the talk, he discussed the “divine violence” of October 7. When the audience noticed three people livestreaming the talk, a scuffle broke out. Later, several audience members pleaded guilty to assault but the court acknowledged that Robinson was not named as a suspect or witness in the police report. Also, the university never claimed he incited or encouraged the violence. 

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Robinson’s talk was clearly protected by the First Amendment, which protects faculty members’ rights to speak as private citizens on matters of public concern. His talk was not delivered on behalf of Texas State University. As far as his teaching at the school is concerned, he had received glowing student reviews and was on track to receive tenure. Some people called for his firing because they found his remarks at the book fair offensive, but the First Amendment protects speech others find offensive precisely because more speech, not less, is the best way to respond to subjectively objectionable speech.

Robinson’s case is a clear violation of the First Amendment — and a district court in Texas agrees. This decision is a step in the right direction. FIRE has been sounding the alarm for months about the state of academic freedom in Texas. Robinson is not even the only faculty member currently suing Texas State for violating their First Amendment rights. 

First Amendment attorneys Samantha Harris and Michael Allen of the law firm Allen Harris are representing Robinson. JT Morris, a supervising senior attorney at FIRE, is serving as local counsel.