58 No. 78 JUSTICE Defending Universities when they Do the Right Thing We also recognize the importance of publicly standing up for university administrators who act courageously to protect their Jewish students and faculty and who are then sued by antisemites. There are two recent examples of this: A. Woodcock Amicus Brief At the end of April 2026, the Brandeis Center filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit in support of the position taken by the University of Kentucky, which is conducting an investigation into the conduct of a tenured professor named Ramsi Woodcock.15 The professor allegedly, among other things, misused University resources by attending antitrust conferences at the school’s expense, at which, instead of discussing antitrust, he advocated that the U.S. and its allies should undertake military action to destroy the State of Israel. Woodcock appealed the District Court’s decision to deny his application for a preliminary injunction to bar the University from investigating his conduct. More specifically, one of the allegations under investigation is that Woodcock violated the University’s anti-discrimination policy, which incorporates the IHRA definition of antisemitism. In that connection, as the District Court noted, Woodcock argues the IHRA definition of antisemitism is flagrantly unconstitutional and that “there [are] no facts under which the Constitution would permit the government to sanction speech solely because it criticizes a particular government or opposes self-determination based on religious affiliation, as application of those examples would require.”16 Our brief explained the IHRA definition and defended its constitutionality as the University is deploying it in seeking to determine whether Woodcock’s speech violates the university’s code of conduct.17 The brief shows that the IHRA definition does not regulate speech. It neither criminalizes speech nor enacts penalties for expression. Even speech that openly delegitimizes, demonizes, or applies double standards to Jews, without more, remains constitutionally protected, and laws incorporating the IHRA definition do not alter that protection. What these laws do is clarify the meaning of antisemitism so that officials charged with enforcing anti-discrimination statutes — officials who are already required to make determinations about discriminatory intent — can accurately assess whether conduct was motivated by antisemitic animus. We also demonstrate that evaluating speech to determine intent is entirely permissible under binding Supreme Court precedent. In August 2026, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s decision to deny the preliminary injunction on technical grounds, without addressing any of the issues raised in our brief. The trial court has been instructed to consider Woodcock’s application for a preliminary injunction on its merits. B. Damsky Amicus Brief The Brandeis Center also filed an amicus brief in the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in support of the University of Florida’s (UF) appeal from a preliminary injunction entered in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.18 In August 2025, UF expelled Preston Damsky, a law student, after finding that Damsky’s threatening and antisemitic conduct created a material or substantial disruption of normal university operations. UF’s decision was based in large part on Damsky’s March 25, 2025, statement on X that “Jews should be abolished by any means necessary.”19 This statement came after more than a year of alarming conduct and speech, including posting comments about white replacement theory in a 1L group chat and submitting academic papers advocating for racial violence. Damsky’s antisemitic social media posts continued even after he was warned that the UF Law community regarded his 15. Brief for Amicus Curiae Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law in Support of Appellees, Woodcock v. Univ. of Ky., No. 26-1234 (6th Cir. 2026) (No. 2026 U.S. 6th Cir. Briefs LEXIS 1405). 16. Woodcock v. Univ. of Ky., 820 F. Supp. 3d 555, 579 (2026). 17. Brandeis Center Amicus Brief, supra note 15, at 3-27. 18. Brief for Amicus Curiae Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law in Support of Appellant, Damsky v. Summerlin, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 623 (2026). 19. Id. at *6.
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