Coral Springs Students Shocked by Antisemitic Material Taught in FIU Class

Florida International University. {Wikipedia}

An adjunct professor at Florida International University gave students an online quiz containing anti-Israel content – an assignment that outraged the class’s Jewish students, including some from Coral Springs, and led to calls for better academic oversight.

The online, multiple-choice quiz given in Mario Reyes’ Terrorism and Homeland Security course this week included questions like, “When Israelis practice terrorism, they often refer to it as [blank].” The answer choices included “proactive attacks” and “terrorist defensive strategy.”

Screenshots courtesy of @DocumentIsrael

Another question asked students, “In which country did the Zionists purchase land to create their new homeland?”

The answer choices were Persia, Israel, Syria, and Palestine, but none of those answers are correct. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, before modern Israel’s establishment in 1948, the territory was ruled by the British and, before that, the Ottoman Empire.

The library’s research collection shows that the land that is now Israel was named Palaestina by the conquering Roman Empire and eventually came to be known as Palestine.

Coral Springs Students Shocked by Antisemitic Material Taught in FIU Class Another question posed to students on the quiz: “Terrorism began with two Zionist organizations, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and [blank].”

The Irgun was an extremist, Jewish paramilitary organization that carried out attacks on occupying British forces, as well as reprisal attacks against Arabs in Palestine, according to Jewish Virtual Library.

The quiz questions were revealed by the @DocumentIsrael X account, which received screenshots of the questions from a Jewish student in Reyes’ class. At least two Jewish students in Reyes’ class are from Coral Springs and said they were appalled by the content.

Coral Springs Students Shocked by Antisemitic Material Taught in FIU Class

Shlomi Dinar, dean of FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, told Coral Springs Talk in a written statement Friday night he had been made aware this week of “a serious concern” with test questions from the Terrorism and Homeland Security course.

“After immediately conducting a thorough review of the circumstances, I discovered that the problematic questions referenced were automatically generated from a bank of over 1,500 questions that come with the textbook Terrorism and Homeland Security (10^th edition) by authors [Jonathan] White and [Steven] Chermak,” Dinar said. “The faculty member did not select or write the questions.”

Dinar said he consulted with the chair of FIU’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Dr. Lisa Stolzenberg, about the class materials. The department has begun a process to select new material to teach in the course this fall, including a review of textbooks.

“As an immediate remedy, the problematic material has been removed from the current class,” Dinar said. “Moving forward, I am taking steps to ensure that across all departments in the college, instructors carefully review all course materials and assignments, including test bank questions, to ensure the highest academic standards are maintained in our classes.”

Florida Rep. Randy Fine, who discussed the controversy with both the State University System and FIU, called for Reyes to be suspended or fired – as well as for better oversight of teaching materials at FIU.

“It’s not acceptable for a professor to be unaware of the content in the textbook [and teaching materials] they are using; I think he probably should lose his job for that,” said Fine, who is currently visiting Israel. “They claim the professor is horrified by these questions, this material, and had no idea. But the problem is that that’s his job.”

Reyes’ LinkedIn profile states that he served in the Marine Corps from 2012 to 2016, a period that included two overseas deployments. He currently works full-time for the U.S. Department of Defense, a job he took following an internship with the Department, his profile states. Reyes did not list his government job title.

“I have told the FIU president that unintentional Jew hatred due to university incompetence isn’t going to fly. There will be accountability,” Fine wrote on X Friday.

Claims of antisemitic material in the Terrorism and Homeland Security book – which has been taught in all of FIU’s Terrorism and Homeland Security courses – were first revealed by The Floridian in 2021. The course is required for FIU criminal justice majors.

The textbook used in FIU’s Terrorism and Homeland Security course.

The book was published by the Cengage Group, a Boston-based educational content, technology, and services company. Cengage did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“The fundamental problem lies with the blatantly antisemitic textbook product that the school is using,” Fine said.

Michelle Rosenberg said in an X post Friday that she took FIU’s Terrorism and Homeland Security course in 2021 with the same textbook.

“I was horrified by the assignments,” Rosenberg wrote. “FIU has known about this material since at least 2021.”

The controversy at FIU is playing out amid a wave of antisemitism on U.S. college campuses.

Like other Jewish college students, Jews at FIU have said demonization of Jews and Israel has become commonplace on campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Yishmael Columna, Vice-President of Students Supporting Israel at FIU, described some of the antisemitic abuse Jewish students endured during a Hillel Shabbat event held after Oct. 7.

“We’ve been called ‘genocide apologizers,’ ‘conflict supporters,’ or people with ‘blood on their hands,’” Columna wrote in a letter published in FIU’s PantherNOW student magazine.

“On October 9, Islamic chants were shouted at the campus Rabbi and me as we took down the Sukkah on [campus] lawns,” she wrote. “Animal corpses were placed in front of our local synagogue, and constant verbal abuse, academic harassment, etc. were perpetrated by adherents of SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] … we never expected the antisemitic nature of these organizations to grow to such extreme ends.”

Florida’s university system in October ordered colleges to shut down all chapters of SPJ, whose national leadership spoke out in support of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Another antisemitic incident at FIU also drew media attention. In May, a video emerged of an FIU student complaining that “anti-Jewish students” were not being protected during campus protests. The footage, which went viral on social media, was filmed during a February student government meeting amid debate over a ceasefire resolution accusing Israel of genocide.

FIU has done a better job than most universities in combating antisemitism and received a B on the Anti-Defamation League’s recent Campus Antisemitism Report Card, the ADL said.

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Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning crime journalist and author. A graduate of Florida International University, Kevin has worked on staff at The Miami Herald, New York Daily News, and The Palm Beach Post.