A Kentucky professor’s free speech is no defense for antisemitism

A University of Kentucky professor was suspended for advocating the destruction of Israel. He recently sued the university for reinstatement, and civil liberties groups have taken up his cause. 

He may well win his case on First Amendment grounds, but that will not absolve him of antisemitism.

Professor Ramsi Woodcock really, really hates Israel. And he doesn’t just hate the Netanyahu government, or the war in Gaza, or the violent assaults by West Bank settlers. Those are just symptoms, which even many Israelis oppose.

Woodcock’s hatred goes so much deeper — to the very survival of Israel itself — that he has demanded the forcible elimination of the Jewish state, with scant regard for the consequences. 

A tenured professor at Kentucky’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law, Woodcock asserts that the “State of Israel,” which he confines in scare quotes, has no right to exist. 

For him, the “destruction of Israel” is a moral imperative, and he has called upon the international community to launch a war to “end Israel.” 

On behalf of his self-initiated Antizionist Legal Studies Movement, Woodcock circulated a petition earlier this year for an international war against Israel. He posted it on various sites, including multiple discussion groups sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools. 

The petition’s seeming call for violence, demanding “that every country in the world make war on Israel immediately,” drew complaints from law professors and others who saw the posts, including the Majority Caucus of the Kentucky state senate.  

In response, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto, issued a statement condemning Woodcock’s petition for seeking the “destruction of a people based on national origin,” which could be “interpreted as antisemitic in accordance with state and federal guidance.” 

In July, Capilouto removed Woodcock “from any teaching and classroom responsibilities,” pending an investigation to determine whether his statements created “a hostile environment” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. 

As later explained by a University of Kentucky spokesman, also invoking Title VI, “If someone’s views as stated threaten the safety and well-being of the university’s students and staff, we are obligated to act to protect our community and our people.” 

That was a drastic overreaction, likely prompted by Capilouto’s skittishness over the Trump administration’s campaign to punish universities for perceived tolerance of antisemitism, which cost the jobs of presidents at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.  

Moreover, a U.S. Department of Education directive, and the Kentucky legislature’s Joint Resolution, adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of antisemitism, which provides that certain accusations against Israel may also be antisemitic. 

Woodcock’s lawsuit, filed by attorneys from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, alleges that the “University’s suspension of Professor Woodcock violates his First Amendment right of freedom of expression.”  

That argument is well taken. Woodcock’s comments have deeply disturbing implications, but they were made outside of class and did not directly threaten any individuals.  

But Woodcock wants more than reinstatement. His lawsuit seeks to prohibit the University of Kentucky and the Department of Education from even considering the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition in “handling complaints of antisemitism.”  

The alliance’s working definition does not by itself, as Woodcock claims, silence or punish criticism of Israel. 

It does point out ways in which criticism of Israel, “taking into account the overall context,” may amount to antisemitism, while specifically cautioning that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” 

Still, the principal drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition has repeatedly explained that it was never intended to be a speech code for disciplinary purposes but should be used only to identify antisemitism for education or data collection. 

Ironically, Woodcock’s own statements provide clear examples of how the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition can be used to identify antisemitism.  

Make no mistake: His projected destruction of Israel would lead to deadly consequences for almost half of the world’s Jews.  

Woodcock’s suit argues that “Jewish people as a group” have no claim for self-determination in Palestine.  

Following his desired “international military intervention [which] is urgently required to end Israel,” the current Jewish inhabitants would have no rights of citizenship or residence in “the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea” — save “the tiny minority of Jewish people whose ancestors lived in Palestine” in 1882.

The inevitable result of such an obliterative military campaign would be the deaths or displacement of millions of Jews whom Woodcock derides as European colonizers, even though about half have ancestry elsewhere in the Middle East or North Africa.

The first illustrative example in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism” is “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.” 

Woodcock’s unique contribution is insistence that the international community must lead the slaughter and expulsion. That ugly proposal resembles something Jews have seen before, but it nonetheless remains protected speech.  

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition should not be used to keep Woodcock out of the classroom. But it will help his students recognize his antisemitism. 

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.