MINNESOTA — The University of Minnesota agreed to pay Raz Segal $250,000 as part of a settlement for rescinding his job offer. The official record states that the terms of the deal stipulate the payout is not an admission of wrongdoing on the university's part.

The dispute centered on a position offered in June 2024 for Segal to serve as head of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The University of Minnesota extended the job offer to Raz Segal on June 5, 2024, following a rigorous search process that resulted in a near-unanimous recommendation from a committee of academics.

Two professors resigned from the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies advisory board two days after the job offer was made. Professors Karen Painter and Bruno Chaouat resigned from the advisory board in protest of the hire. Painter is a professor of musicology and Jewish studies at the University of Minnesota, while Chaouat is a professor of French and Jewish studies at the institution.

In a letter to university leadership, Karen Painter and Bruno Chaouat accused Raz Segal of justifying Hamas atrocities and blaming Israel for the October 7 attacks. Five days after the job offer, then interim president Jeff Ettinger rescinded it. Ettinger was the interim president of the University of Minnesota at the time the offer was rescinded.

The university cited perspective received from members of the community as the reason for withdrawing the offer. Jeff Ettinger informed Raz Segal via email that additional members of the University community had come forward to express interest in providing perspective on the hiring. Donors raised concerns about the hire through a public records request obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Raz Segal obtained dozens of emails through a public records request revealing a pressure campaign on university officials by donors, legislators, and pro-Israel activists. The day before the offer was revoked, donors sent Jeff Ettinger a message stating Segal used tropes offensive to Jews. Donors stated that fundraising for the center would likely grind to a halt if Segal were hired.

An email sent a day after the previous donor message stressed that Jewish donors could withdraw their support from the university. Raz Segal stated that hundreds of emails were sent to the university following the same template, indicating a coordinated campaign. "The attack against me by these donors presented a world turned upside down: my commitment, as a Jewish scholar of the Holocaust and the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, to stopping a livestreamed genocide in front of our eyes posed, in their minds, a threat to Jews," Segal said.

The controversy stemmed from an op-ed Segal published in Jewish Currents in October 2023, the week after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. In the article, he called Israel’s retaliatory actions a textbook case of genocide. Raz Segal’s article cited statements from Israeli officials, a total siege on Gaza, and an aerial campaign that had dropped 6,000 bombs on the territory by October 13, 2023. The article also characterized Hamas’s attacks as mass murder and a war crime under international law, and he stated he would never justify Hamas.

University communications staff workshopped public statements and debated whether to say Segal had received the search committee’s enthusiastic recommendation or support. A senior member of the communications team warned colleagues that defending the candidate too much at the moment can be risky. The communications team scrapped a sentence from a drafted response stating that the university did not apply political litmus tests in hiring.

University staff reached out to Raz Segal to confirm whether he was an Israeli native. Raz Segal responded that he was born in Israel, grew up there, and that his parents, sister, friends, and colleagues lived there. "I care deeply about the place," he wrote.

Segal is an Israeli American scholar who is Jewish and a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen. He is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors.

Maria LaHood, deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, criticized the university's decision. "Dr Segal had the courage to sound the alarm to try to prevent Israel’s genocide of Palestinians," LaHood said. She said the University of Minnesota administration overruled the will of its faculty and revoked Raz Segal's job offer in violation of the First Amendment and fundamental principles of academic freedom.

Briana Reenshuler, a University of Minnesota spokesperson, addressed the resolution. "The University remains focused on advancing our core educational mission and promoting thoughtful inquiry across all of our centers, departments and programs," Reenshuler said. He said the significant sum should encourage scholars punished for criticizing Israel to fight back. "This settlement represents a successful refusal to accept the world of lies that blur an ongoing genocide, and a commitment to continue the intertwined struggles for truth, justice, and accountability—in Palestine and on our campuses," he said.

he said University of Minnesota leadership determined that he is the wrong kind of Israeli and the wrong kind of Jew. "I really wish I had been wrong. But unfortunately I wasn’t," he said.

Raz Segal now serves as an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey. He serves as an endowed professor in the study of modern genocide at Stockton University and is a tenured professor there. Segal directs the Master of Arts program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University, which is located in New Jersey. He was born in Israel and grew up there, and his parents and sister live in Israel.

The settlement shows tensions between academic freedom and external pressure from donors and community members regarding speech on international conflicts. The University of Minnesota previously rescinded a job offer for Raz Segal in 2024, leading to a $250,000 settlement, which is the only recorded incident involving this operator and the same type of dispute. The relevant number is $250,000, which is the settlement amount paid by the University of Minnesota to Raz Segal.

Why It Matters

The $250,000 settlement resolves a dispute where a near-unanimous faculty recommendation was overturned following donor pressure and accusations regarding an scholar's views on Israel. This outcome shows the tension between external fundraising concerns and academic hiring processes at public institutions. The financial resolution provides compensation to the scholar without establishing a formal precedent regarding liability or admissions of wrongdoing by the university.