University of Kentucky professor Ramsi Woodcock was removed from his classroom responsibilities and is currently under investigation for alleged antisemitic conduct after authoring and sharing an online petition calling for international military action against Israel. 

UK President Eli Capilouto addressed the pending investigation and removal of the tenured College of Law professor in a campus-wide email on Friday, July 18.

In the email, Capilouto said the petition called “for the destruction of a people based on national origin,” and that the university condemns “any call for violence.”

“The views expressed online certainly do not represent the institution’s views. They express hate,” Capilouto wrote.

The Kentucky Jewish Council identified Woodcock, and he identified himself as the employee mentioned in the campus-wide email. 

The Kentucky Jewish Council published a press release on Friday, July 18, regarding the situation, shortly after Capilouto’s email was sent to the campus community.

“The hate-filled rhetoric espoused by individuals like Professor Woodcock is not academic dissent, it is incitement,” the press release read. 

The university has yet to identify Woodcock as the employee under investigation. UK Spokesperson Jay Blanton confirmed Woodcock’s title as a tenured professor at UK’s College of Law. 

Woodcock told the Kernel the petition Capilouto referenced is the “Petition for Military Action Against Israel,” which demands “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 everywhere from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Woodcock is currently the only signature listed on the petition.

Capilouto said the petition “can be interpreted as antisemitic in accordance with state and federal guidance” in the email.

Woodcock opposed his petition being called antisemitic, saying his views on Israel do not reflect his feelings about the Jewish community.

“Zionism and Judaism are two distinct concepts,” Woodcock said. “It is possible to be a critic of Israel and not be a critic of Judaism or Jewish people generally.”

Zionism is “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, the director of the Chabad at the UK Jewish Student Center and chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council, said Woodcock’s conduct goes beyond criticizing Israeli policy and instead calls for the decimation of Israel and the state’s Jewish inhabitants.

“It is an unhinged cry for war, one that he hasn’t made in any other conflict during his time at UK or in professional life,” Litvin said. “His single-minded obsession with a single country and calling for that country’s decimation portrays not academic dissent, but full-on bigotry.”

Woodcock said the intention of calling for the formation of an international coalition to engage in a war against Israel is to prevent violence against Palestinians from continuing.

“That’s the only way to prevent this genocide from being carried forward,” Woodcock said. “That’s my view as a scholar, and a scholar of international law. It’s also my view as a moral human being.”

The response to Israel’s actions is decolonization, Woodcock said, explaining that some colonies throughout history had to use armed resistance to fight for independence. 

“All of the African countries we have today are all independent, free, almost all of them as a result of armed struggle and resistance,” Woodcock said. “And most of them got help from other countries,”

Woodcock said the same must be done for Palestine. 

Litvin said classifying Israel as a colonial project is “not an argument made in good faith,” and that Israel is the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people.

“Every single scientific survey, every single holy book in the world, every single archeological study, has shown the same thing,” Litvin said. “Jews have maintained their indigenous connection to the land throughout their diaspora, and had sought to return to it.”

Litvin said the conduct that raised concern most recently was “a call for war against the only Jewish majority state in the world, and the slaughter of 7 million Jews, which amounts to a second Holocaust.”

Woodcock denied claims that he called for violence against Jewish people, saying his judgments regard those of a country’s actions, not a larger community. 

“The website is about calling for military intervention to stop a colonization project that’s practicing apartheid and committing genocide. That’s what it says,” Woodcock said. “It does not call for violence against Jews as such.”

In his email to the campus community, Capilouto expressed concerns about how the employee under investigation would affect the campus community. Litvin said he shares these fears. 

“You add to that, a person in a position of power, who openly says he calls for violence against the majority of the world’s Jewish population, that would certainly impact the college’s Jewish students,” Litvin said.

Woodcock said he didn’t recall a time when he shared his beliefs or website with students, saying his intention was to reach fellow scholars and law professors. The petition invites law scholars specifically to sign and join.

“I don’t think students should be put in a position of feeling that they have to take a political position on anything,” Woodcock said. “I’m always very clear about that with my classes.”

Woodcock said he believed Litvin knew his intentions for the website, calling both Litvin’s and Capilouto’s statements against him defamatory.

“I want to make very clear that he (Capilouto) owes me an apology,” Woodcock said. “He needs to retract his statement. He needs to apologize to me, and he needs to come meet with me so that I can educate him about the colonization of Palestine.” 

About an hour before the campus-wide email was sent, Woodcock said he had received an email notifying him of the investigation. Having already met with the vice provost regarding his outspoken beliefs, Woodcock said he had removed his personal website from his UK profile. 

In the campus-wide email, Capilouto said the university has engaged with outside legal counsel to determine if federal and state guidance have been violated, as well as university policies. 

The email also announced an updated web policy, which now prohibits linking from university resources to personal websites or platforms.

“While someone in his or her personal capacity may be free to express themselves, the university is also free to make clear that the individual’s personal views are not those of our community,” Capilouto said.