A test question asked in a Florida International University class infuriated state Rep. Randy Fine, who was supported by President Trump.
One of the questions students uploaded on social media was that Palestine was a country before the creation of Israel. Another seems to suggest that the Zionists invented terrorism. To Mr. Fine, they were evidence that college textbooks and their accompanying exam materials were rife with anti-Semitism.
Fine said he wondered, “How many other Islamic terrorism textbooks are in use in our university system?”
The vast Florida State University system, which educates more than 430,000 students, has been trying to find out.
The system's chancellor, Ray Rodriguez, removed the textbook “Terrorism and Homeland Security'' from use within the system pending review. Then in August, he announced a notable initiative that worried some professors and academic freedom advocates. All 12 universities he oversees will have faculty committees to scrutinize course materials, including textbooks, for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.
For Rodriguez, the test questions Fine opposed were not only bigoted and anti-Semitic, they were also illegal under a 2024 Florida law that defines some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.
The topic of this class, which sparked a statewide effort, may seem surprising. It is not academic fields like sociology that right-wing politicians have targeted in recent years, claiming they are home to leftist ideology.
Rather, the course was about terrorism and homeland security and was taught by an instructor who had served in the Marine Corps. And the textbook's primary author is a longtime security researcher who oversaw local counterterrorism training efforts in Republican administrations.
“This is a very random and inappropriate choice,” said Martha Schoolman, an English professor who opposes the textbook certification effort. “But that doesn't matter either, because once you decide it's your job to scrutinize everything for anti-Semitism, nothing will pass.”
She added, “This is a policy created based on screenshots.”
The state-wide research effort comes as the academic community is still reeling from the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas and Israel's military response. The campus, which was roiled by demonstrations protesting Israel's bombing of Gaza last spring, has fallen silent. But under pressure from lawmakers, many universities tightened rules governing protests, expelled students for conduct violations, and scrutinized classes.
Florida's efforts are outstanding. At the K-12 level, conservatives have long called for school districts to ban books and for publishers to investigate curricula for inappropriate content. But such scrutiny has been relatively rare in higher education. Scrutiny of course materials was squarely in the realm of professors and their faculty.
Mr. Fine, who is Jewish and calls himself “The Hammer of the Hebrews,” is a rising star in the Republican Party. Trump endorsed Mike Walz in November as his next candidate for Congress after he resigned to become Trump's national security adviser.
For Fine, the test questions posted on social media in June were an example of anti-Israel bias. One of the questions was: “In which country did the Zionists purchase land to create a new homeland?” The answer was Palestine. However, Palestine was a territory of the Ottoman Empire before World War I, and then ruled by Britain. It wasn't a country.
Another exam question seemed to suggest that Zionist extremist organizations had invented terrorism. But terrorism existed long before the Middle East conflict.
Mr. Fine began to point the finger. First he turned to the course's instructor, adjunct professor Mario Reyes. Fine wrote on social media that Reyes “shouldn't be buying green bananas for the office,” suggesting Reyes' days in office are numbered. But when he learned that Mr. Reyes, a Marine veteran working for the Department of Defense, had not written the exam questions, he turned his attention to the textbook and its author instead.
The book's principal author, Jonathan R. White, has credentials that seem to have little to do with pro-Palestinian bias. He served in the George W. Bush administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and taught terrorism and homeland security at Grand Valley State University in Michigan for decades. According to his biography, he conducted anti-terrorism training for the police and military.
Dr. White, who recently retired as a pastor, did not respond to requests for comment.
In an interview, Fine admitted that he had not read the textbook, which he described as “pro-Islamic terrorism.” But he said he was assured by university officials that the book was problematic.
Mr. Rodriguez, who said in an interview that he had reviewed the book, was even more sober. He did not cite specific examples, but said the book contained “anti-Israel bias.”
A review of the textbook by The New York Times found it to be more nuanced than the three exam questions. The textbook does not state or imply that Palestine is a modern, independent country or that Zionists invented terrorism.
In a passage from the book that appears to be the basis for one of the exam questions under scrutiny, the author offers the Israeli perspective that terrorism in the region is linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also included the Palestinian view that Israel used terrorist tactics until it developed a conventional military force.
However, the textbook authors do not seem to be involved in the test questions either.
The book's publisher, Cengage Group, said in a statement that it used a third-party vendor to create questions to quiz students on the book's content. The company said the questions “do not meet our standards” and stopped selling digital and print versions of the book while it conducts a “full academic review” to ensure the content is unbiased. He said it had stopped.
Brian Connolly, a history professor at the University of South Florida, said the questions were poorly structured but stemmed from more nuanced descriptions in the textbook.
Dr. Connolly said, “If we're going to focus on poorly written multiple-choice questions, the state university system is going to spend the rest of its life dealing with that problem.” said.
The book is still under review by the state university system.
In August, Rodriguez issued marching orders to university presidents to look for other examples of textbooks and materials containing anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.
He said material to review is identified through keyword searches in the course description and syllabus. Search terms included “Israel,” “Israel,” “Palestine,” “Middle East,” “Zionism,” “Judaism,” and “Jews.”
Rodriguez said anti-Semitism would be identified using a definition put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Under that definition, calling the creation of the state of Israel a “racist endeavor” or imposing “double standards” on Israel would be considered anti-Semitic. This definition has been criticized on university campuses by some who claim to protect Israel from legitimate criticism.
Academic freedom groups such as the American Association of University Professors have denounced the state textbook certification effort as a “thought police” that “deepens Florida's increasingly authoritarian approach to higher education.”
Teachers argue this could violate collective bargaining agreements that give professors the right to “determine pedagogy.”
And the Society for Jewish Studies said the initiative unfairly selects instructors who teach Jewish studies and related fields.
Laura Liebman, the group's president, said the effort represented good intentions gone wrong. She said she was concerned that people without subject matter expertise would scrutinize course materials based on vague criteria.
“It struck at the heart of academic freedom,” she says.
Professor Schoolman, who is Jewish, said the entire exercise could seem like a farce. “To find the needle of anti-Semitism in the haystack, we have to overturn the entire system,” she said. But she also feared it could signal further political battles over the professor's comments and teachings.
Rodriguez said in an interview that faculty members will conduct a survey before this week's board meeting and will send the results to the university system's board of governors. If bias is found, experts will be brought in to further examine the material, he said.
“We need to determine whether this was an anomaly or part of a broader problem,” Rodriguez said of the Homeland Security exam issue.
