The proof questions of a class at the International University of Florida enraged Randy Fine, a state legislator backed by President Trump.
One of the questions, uploaded to social networks by a student, said Palestine was a country before Israel was created. Another seemed to suggest that the Zionists invented terrorism. For Mr. Fine, they were evidence that university textbooks and the trial materials that accompany them were flooded with anti -Semitism.
Mr. Fine said he made him wonder: “How many other Muslim horror textbooks are used in our university system?”
The extensive system of the Florida State University, which educates more than 430,000 students, has been trying to find out.
Ray Rodrigues, the chancellor of the system, eliminated the textbook, “terrorism and national security”, of the use in the system, waiting for a review. Then, in August, he announced a remarkable effort that has worried some professors and defenders of academic freedom: the 12 universities that Supervisa had to establish faculty panels to examine the materials of the course, including textbooks, for anti -Semitism and Anti-Israel bias.
For Mr. Rodrigues, the trial questions to which Mr. Fine opposed were not only biased or antisemy, but also were illegal under a 2024 Florida statute that defines some criticisms of Israel as anti -Semites.
The theme of the class that caused state effort may seem unexpected. It was not in one of the disciplines, such as sociology, that the legislators on the right have directed in recent years, arguing that they were bastions of leftist ideology.
Rather, the course was about terrorism and national security, taught by an instructor who had served in the Marines. And the main author of the textbook is a safety researcher for a long time that supervised local anti -terrorism training efforts in a republican administration.
“This is such a random and inappropriate choice,” said Martha Schoolman, an English teacher who has spoken against the effort of projection of the textbook. “But it doesn’t matter either. Because once you have decided that it is your work to examine everything for anti -Semitism, nothing will happen. “
He added: “This is a policy that is done based on screen capture.”
The research effort throughout the State develops at a time when the academy is still staggering from the attack of October 7, 2023 by Hamas and the military response of Israel. The campuses that were dragged the spring passed by manifestations that protest the bombing of Gaza de Israel have calmed down. But under the pressure of the legislators, many schools and universities have pressed their rules that govern the protests, expelled students for behavior and behavior Classes analyzed.
Florida’s effort stands out. At level K-12, conservatives have long pushed school districts to ban books and editors to examine the curriculum in search of inappropriate material. However, in higher education, such scrutiny had been relatively rare. Research, of course, materials have been directly in the domain of teachers and their departments.
Mr. Fine, who is Jewish and is called “The Hebrew hammer”, is a rising star in the Republican party. Trump supported him in November for the seat in the Congress that Mike Waltz resigned to become Trump’s national security advisor.
To Mr. Fine, the test questions Posted in Social Networks In June there were examples of antiisraeli bias. One question said: “In which country did Zionists buy land to create their new homeland?” The answer was Palestine. But Palestine was Ottoman territory before World War I and administered by Great Britain after that; It wasn’t a country.
Another trial question seemed to imply that extremist Zionist organizations Invented terrorism. But terrorism existed long before the conflict in the Middle East.
Mr. Fine began to seek responsibility. At first he looked at the course instructor, Mario Reyes, deputy professor. Mr. Fine wrote on social networks that Mr. Reyes “should not buy green bananas for his office”, suggesting that his days at work were limited. But after learning that Mr. Reyes, a veteran sailor who works for the Department of Defense, did not write the questions of the test, directed his attention to the textbook and their authors.
The main author of the book, Jonathan R. White, has credentials barely seem associated with a pro-Palestinian bias. It served in the George W. Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of September 11, and taught about national terrorism and security for decades at Grand Valley University in Michigan. He conducted anti -terrorism training for the police and military forces, according to his biography.
Dr. White, who recently retired and became a shepherd, did not respond to requests for comments.
In an interview, Mr. Fine acknowledged that he had not read the textbook he described as “Pro Muslim terror.” But he said that university officials assured him that the book was problematic.
Mr. Rodrigues, who said in an interview that he had reviewed the book, was more temperate. He said the book contained “antiisraeli bias”, although he did not quote specific examples.
A review of the New York Times textbook discovered that it was more nuanced than the three trial questions. The textbook does not say or imply that Palestine has been an independent country in modern times, nor that Zionists invented terrorism.
In a passage from the book that seems to be the basis of one of the trial questions under scrutiny, the author provided an Israeli perspective that terrorism in the region was associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also included a Palestinian perspective that the Israelis had used terrorist tactics until they developed a conventional military force.
But it seems that the author of the textbook was not behind the trial questions either.
Cengage Group, the book editor, said in a statement that he had used a third party provider to write questions aimed at questioning students about the material contained in the book. The company said the questions “did not meet our standards” and that it had stopped digital and printed sales of the book while making a “complete academic review” to ensure that the content is free of prejudices.
Brian Connolly, professor of history at the University of Southern Florida, said the questions were poorly built, but flowed from the most nuanced writing of the textbook.
“If we are going to focus on badly written multiple option questions,” said Dr. Connolly, “then the state university system will take the rest of their lives to address that.”
The book remains under revision of the state university system.
In August, Mr. Rodrigues set orders to march to the presidents of the University to find other examples of textbooks and teaching materials containing anti-Semitism or anti-Israel bias.
He said that the materials to be reviewed would be identified by searches for keywords for descriptions and curricula. Search words included “Israel”, “Israelí”, “Palestinian”, “Middle East”, “Zionism”, “Judaism” and “Jews.”
Mr. Rodrigues said anti -Semitism would be identified using a definition presented by the International Alliance of the Holocaust’s memory. Under that definition, calling Israel’s creation a “racist effort” or keeping Israel to a “double standard” would qualify as an anti -Semitic. The definition has been criticized in university campuses by some who argue that it protects Israel from legitimate criticism.
Academic freedom groups such as the American Association of University Teachers have eliminated the stress of compilation of state textbooks, describing it as “thought surveillance” that “deepens the increasingly authoritarian approach to Florida for higher education.”
The members of the Faculty have said that they can violate their Collective Bargation Agreement, which gives teachers the right to “determine pedagogy.”
And the Jewish Studies Association said the effort disproportionately highlights for scrutiny instructors who teach Jewish studies and related fields.
Laura Leibman, the group’s president, said the effort represented the good intentions that went wrong. She said she was concerned to have people without experience in the course of experience based on murky criteria.
“That hit the heart of academic freedom,” he said.
The school teacher, who is Jewish, said that all exercise might seem like a farce. “The whole system must be the other way around to find anti -Semitic needles in a haystack,” he said. But she was also worried that she can indicate more political battles about what teachers can say and teach.
In the interview, Mr. Rodrigues said that the members of the Faculty would carry out the reviews and send their findings to the Board of Governors of the University System before the Board meets this week. If bias is identified, experts would be brought to further examine the materials.
“We need to identify if this was an anomaly,” Rodrigues said about the national security test questions, “or if it is part of a broader problem.”
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