The University of Minnesota paused the hiring of a professor who wrote that Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza after Oct. 7 was “a textbook case of genocide” to head the school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS), Jewish Insider has learned.
The pause, which has not yet been publicly announced by the university, came on Monday evening after two members of the center’s advisory board resigned in protest on Friday.
“The assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes,” Raz Segal, an Israeli associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, wrote in the Jewish Currents on Oct. 13. “I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for the University of Minnesota told JI that the director selection process was put on hold “to allow an opportunity to determine next steps.”
Minnesotan here. This has obviously been in the local news a lot.
The story is that the university received some complaints saying the university shouldn’t be hiring an anti-semite in this position; that coupled with the board resignations caused the university to pause the hire to give time for a review.
I don’t know how this will play out. The university is between a rock and a hard place; if you think they won’t be absolutely blasted if they proceed, I think you don’t understand the amount of heat that can and will be brought to bear. On the other hand, Dr. Segal is extremely qualified for the job and had indeed already been extended - and had accepted - an offer for the position.
Defenders of Israel’s actions still have far more firepower and political capital than the people who accept the UN’s findings that what Israel is doing qualifies as war crimes and genocide. I do not envy the university; they lose no matter what they do. I think they’ll take more damage if they continue and hire Dr. Segal, but I hope they take the ethically right path and being him in board.