A professor at the University of Kentucky on Thursday sued the university leadership and the head of the US Department of Education after he was investigated and removed from teaching for eliminationist rhetoric against Israel.
Ramsi Woodcock’s calls to destroy the Jewish state ran afoul of state antisemitism law, but he contends that his anti-Zionist diatribes are protected speech, in a case that touches on First Amendment protections and serves as a counterpoint to lawsuits filed by Jewish groups against universities across the US that argue anti-Zionism is discriminatory toward Jews.
Woodcock is a tenured law professor at the university’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law and has worked at the university since 2018. He sued the university president, other university leaders, and US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a federal court in Kentucky.
Woodcock’s anti-Israel positions, published online, amount to a broadside of common far-left attacks against Israel, combining genocide and apartheid accusations, international law, colonialist academic theories, and characterizing Israel as an impediment to the world order.
“Zionism is not only racism, but colonialism, and the remedy is not equality but decolonization,” he said, characterizing Israel as an “American colony” and arguing against “any right of self-determination for Jewish people” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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He has taken the argument a step further than many anti-Israel academics, though, by explicitly arguing for the violent destruction of Israel and laying out a plan for a global war against the Jewish state.
Ramsi Woodcock (Courtesy)
In public statements last year, he called to “end Israel” and demanded “war — by the international community against Israel.”
“We demand that every country in the world make war on Israel immediately and until such time as Israel has submitted permanently and unconditionally to the government of Palestine,” he wrote in a petition.
He suggested that the United Nations could use a resolution known as “uniting for peace” to destroy the Jewish state and that the countries that have accused Israel of genocide could forge a military alliance.
The lawsuit said the university first took action against Woodcock in July because of a Kentucky law passed months earlier meant to combat campus antisemitism.
The law required universities to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, in line with the state’s recognition of the definition in 2021. The University of Kentucky says it investigates antisemitism complaints based on the IHRA definition.
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters in New York City, August 16, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
The IHRA definition is contentious because it equates some forms of anti-Israel rhetoric with antisemitism, including denying Jews the right to self-determination, applying double standards to Israel, and comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
In July, in response to Woodcock, university president Eli Capilouto released a public statement calling Woodcock’s views “repugnant” and stating that the rhetoric could be antisemitic.
“We condemn any call for violence and the views expressed online certainly do not represent the institution’s views. They express hate,” the statement said, without mentioning Woodcock by name.
Capilouto characterized the comments as “calling for the destruction of a people based on national origin.” Israelis are protected under US federal law as a national origin group, and Jews are recognized as a protected faith group.
Woodcock said in the lawsuit that he had been reassigned to “professional development” instead of teaching and had been barred from the college of law’s campus.
He was being investigated for calling for the genocide of Israelis and using antisemitic tropes, the lawsuit said.
Anti-Israel socialist protesters in New York City, June 5, 2024. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
Woodcock argues that his suspension violates his rights to freedom of expression and due process, and discriminated against him.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction that would end his suspension, a halt to the investigation against him, a court ruling stating that the state law supporting the IHRA definition is unconstitutional, and an injunction preventing McMahon from using the definition.
A university spokesperson told The Times of Israel that Woodcock had not been suspended, but reassigned pending the investigation, and that the university would limit its comments during the probe in the interest of fairness.
“People in this country have the right to express themselves. That is not in question. But the university has the right to express itself as well. We have. What was expressed is repugnant,” a university spokesperson said, reiterating positions previously stated by Capilouto.
“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,” the statement said. “Our faculty have a right to speak about their research and scholarship within their area of expertise. That right, however, doesn’t extend to creating a hostile environment for people.”
Woodcock’s case is an inversion of lawsuits filed by Jewish groups against campus antisemitism around the US. Those lawsuits argue that Zionism is integral to Jewish identity, citing historical Jewish connections to Israel and Israel’s central role in the Jewish faith, and that anti-Zionism is therefore discriminatory.
The Kentucky lawsuit takes the opposite approach by rejecting Jewish connections to the land. Woodcock argued that Israelis are European colonizers, claimed that Jewish communities in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East “were more likely to descend from communities of converts” than from Jews originating in Israel, and that Palestinians are actually the descendants of the indigenous Jews. He characterized Jews who lived in Israel before Zionist immigration as “Palestinian Jews” — a term that is not used by Jews themselves — and said that group should be treated as part of the Palestinian national movement, not the broader Jewish community.
Many of the claims in the lawsuit are ahistorical, for example, characterizing Jewish arrivals in Israel as imperial conquerors instead of refugees, and depicting the 1948 war that established Israel as part of a long-term Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, instead of an Arab uprising and invasion targeting the nascent Jewish state.
Legal battles around antisemitism on campuses and elsewhere are taking place in courtrooms around the US, with some universities, such as Columbia University, being battered by both sides. The legal struggles have gained steam since the surge in campus antisemitism spurred by the 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel.
Anti-Israel lawsuits like Woodcock’s are significant for pro-Israel cases because they can set legal precedents that are cited in similar lawsuits. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, in October beat a discrimination lawsuit filed by pro-Israel Jewish students, in a ruling that was swiftly cited in other courts dealing with campus antisemitism.
Woodcock’s legal team includes lawyers from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR and other anti-Israel and civil rights groups are backing student protesters, while Jewish groups like the National Jewish Advocacy Center and the Brandeis Center are backing Jewish students in many of the lawsuits.
Most campus antisemitism controversies in recent years have taken place in liberal areas, such as the Northeast and West Coast, while more conservative southern states like Kentucky are increasingly seen as more friendly to pro-Israel Jewish students.
The University of Kentucky, in Lexington, is a public university and the largest in the state, with close to 40,000 students.