Absurd: Professor who claimed Israel is committing genocide to receive $250,000 settlement
About two years ago, Professor Raz Segal was appointed head of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Following intense pressure from donors, the institution canceled the appointment. It has now been determined that the professor will be compensated by the university, which reportedly violated the First Amendment and its commitment to academic freedom.
The Center for Constitutional Rights in the US announced that Prof. Raz Segal, an Israeli-American scholar of the Holocaust and genocide, will be compensated by the University of Minnesota with approximately $250,000. Segal, whose appointment to head an academic center for the study of the Holocaust and genocide was canceled after he sparked public outrage by claiming that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, will be compensated as part of a settlement reached with the university administration.
Initially, the university stood behind the choice and clarified that the search committee had recommended Segal after extensive consultation, but only five days after the position was offered to him, the university's interim president, Jeff Ettinger, withdrew the offer. The cancellation of the appointment came after heavy pressure from Jewish figures and donors, who did not appreciate the statements of the professor. Among other things, after the October 7 attack, he published an article in which he described what was happening in the Gaza Strip as a "clear case of genocide."
Public criticism of the appointment arrived quickly. Within two days of his appointment, two professors resigned from the center's advisory board in protest. One of them, Bruno Chaouat, who previously served as the center's director, attacked Segal and claimed that his positions justify the Hamas attack. Following this, a campaign against the appointment developed, in which an organization from the Jewish community of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota (JCRC) participated, accusing Segal of holding "extremist" views.
A turn in the affair came when the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a Freedom of Information request and received internal documents that it claims reveal the pressure exerted on the university administration. The organization revealed that on June 9, donors wrote to Ettinger that Segal had used imagery "offensive to Jews" and warned that fundraising for the center would "stop completely" if he were appointed. Hours before the offer was canceled, another email was sent to Ettinger with a warning that "Jewish donors" would withdraw their support for the university.
The center claims that the documents show that the university knew that canceling the appointment raised an issue of academic freedom. A draft response stated that the university does not apply "political litmus tests" in hiring employees, but the sentence was later omitted after a senior public relations official warned that defending the candidate too firmly at this stage "could be dangerous."
Two years after the appointment was canceled, the result is that Segal did not receive the center, but will receive a quarter of a million dollars from the university. The Center for Constitutional Rights presented the compensation as a victory of principle. Its deputy legal director, Maria LaHood, argued that the university violated the First Amendment and its commitment to academic freedom.
Segal himself did not retract his position. In a statement regarding the settlement, he again called what is happening in the Gaza Strip "genocide" and presented the affair as an attempt to silence him. Regarding the compensation, he emphasizes that he is a Jew, the grandson of four Holocaust survivors, and expresses bewilderment that his commitment to stopping what he calls "a genocide broadcast live before our eyes" was presented as a threat to Jews. According to him, the university's decision to accept this claim and cancel his appointment exposed its "intellectual and moral bankruptcy."
