Legal victory for scholar denied university post after calling Gaza a ‘textbook case of genocide’

Professor Raz Segal, one of the first genocide scholars to describe Israel’s assault on Gaza as genocide, has reached a $250,000 settlement with the University of Minnesota more than two years after it withdrew an offer for him to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies following a campaign against his appointment.

Just six days after Israel began its devastating assault on the besieged Gaza Strip in October 2023, Segal warned that the world was witnessing genocide.

Writing in Jewish Currents on 13 October, 2023, the Israeli-American Holocaust and genocide scholar declared: “I say this as a scholar of genocide,” before describing Israel’s attack as “a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.” He cited Israel’s siege of Gaza, mass killing, forced displacement and statements by senior Israeli officials as evidence of genocidal intent.

Watch: Genocide in Gaza: MEMO in Conversation with Raz Segal

Nearly three years later, Segal told The Guardian that he took no satisfaction from seeing his early warning increasingly echoed by other experts and human rights organisations.

“I really wish I had been wrong,” he said. “But unfortunately I wasn’t.”

The University of Minnesota offered Segal the position of Stephen C Feinstein Chair and director of its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies on 5 June, 2024, along with a tenured position in its history department.

Segal was recommended by a search committee following an extensive selection process, with one committee member describing his presentation as “breathtaking”.

Five days later, however, the university withdrew the offer after donors, politicians and pro-Israel organisations mounted a campaign opposing his appointment.

Read: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, UK appeal tribunal confirms in landmark ruling

Internal documents obtained through a public records request showed that donors threatened to withhold funding and that university officials came under pressure over Segal’s views on Israel and Gaza.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represented Segal, argued that the university retaliated against him for constitutionally protected speech and violated fundamental principles of academic freedom.

Records released by the organisation indicate that university officials understood Segal’s scholarly analysis of Gaza to be central to the controversy surrounding his appointment.

Segal, who is Jewish, a dual Israeli-US citizen and the grandson of four Holocaust survivors, said the episode showed that university leaders had effectively decided that he was “the wrong kind of Israeli and the wrong kind of Jew”.

The university’s decision triggered a major dispute over academic freedom. Forty leading Holocaust and genocide scholars wrote in support of Segal, while University of Minnesota faculty passed a no-confidence vote against the interim president and provost. The American Association of University Professors also called for the university to restore the appointment.

At the time, Segal’s assessment placed him among a relatively small number of scholars prepared to describe Israel’s actions unequivocally as genocide. His warning has since been echoed by a widening body of genocide scholars and human rights organisations.

Among them is Israeli-American Holocaust and genocide scholar Omer Bartov, a professor at Brown University, who concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. In a July 2025 essay headlined “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”, Bartov argued that the evidence had crossed the threshold into genocide.

Two of Israel’s leading human rights organisations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, have also concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In July 2025, B’Tselem said an examination of Israeli policy, its consequences and statements by senior political and military figures led it to the “unequivocal conclusion” that Israel was deliberately seeking to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel reached the same conclusion after documenting what it described as the deliberate and systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.

Read: Israel committing genocide in Gaza, scholars’ association declares

A UN Commission of Inquiry has similarly concluded that Israeli authorities have committed genocide in Gaza, with its findings forming part of a growing body of international assessments that have vindicated warnings issued by Segal and other scholars during the earliest days of Israel’s assault.

The $250,000 settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by the University of Minnesota. Segal had hoped that the university would restore the original job offer but told The Guardian that option had been taken “off the table”. The position remains unfilled.

Segal is now a tenured professor at Stockton University in New Jersey, where he directs its master’s programme in Holocaust and genocide studies. He said he hopes the settlement will encourage other academics facing dismissal, suspension or investigation over criticism of Israel to “fight back”.