UK professor reassigned over views shared on website claims his First Amendment rights have been violated

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - A University of Kentucky professor has been reassigned after creating a website calling for military action against Israel.

Ramsi Woodcock—a tenured professor at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law—has been at the university for seven years.

Woodcock is behind a website called The Antizionist Legal Studies Movement. The website claims Israel is a colony founded through the genocide of native Palestinians. The website also includes a petition for military action against Israel.

“Once we understand that Israel is a colonization project that practices apartheid and commits genocide, we need to start thinking as law scholars whose business it is to study justice as well as law, how it is that we can bring about a resolution,” said Woodcock.

The University reassigned Professor Woodcock after learning about the website.

Woodcock says he’s not allowed inside the college of law while the university investigates.

UK sent WKYT a statement saying they recognize Woodcock is free to express those views in his personal capacity, but they condemn any call for violence and consider his remarks to be “hate.”

The tenured professor believes he’s protected by free speech.

“As far as I know, I am the only tenured professor at a state school who has been subjected to this kind of punishment retaliation for his speech,” Woodcock told us.

Woodcock has support from the national group FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

“Faculty members under the First Amendment have the broad expressive right to comment on matters of public concern outside the classroom,” said Graham Piro, a Faculty Legal Defense Fund Fellow at FIRE.

Woodcock says he’s not anti-semitic.

“I’m opposed to the existence of Israel; that is not the same thing as being opposed to the existence of Jewish people,” he said.

He said he believes things would be different if his views were different.

WKYT reached out to the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass, which said that they support the University of Kentucky’s statement and they want to make sure students feel safe on campus and do everything to support the students.