The chancellor of Florida’s state university system has launched a review of public university courses for “antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias” following controversy this summer over a textbook and quiz questions allegedly used at Florida International University.
It’s unclear whether that flap led Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, a former Republican state lawmaker and ally of governor Ron DeSantis, to call for the sweeping evaluation of curricula. The State University System of Florida did not provide an interview Thursday with Rodrigues or any other official, nor did it answer questions via email.
But Randy Fine, a Republican member of the Florida House, who is Jewish and who served alongside the chancellor and calls him a friend, said the statewide review “absolutely” came from an incident at Florida International University this summer. “When we learned that Florida universities were using a factually inaccurate, openly antisemitic textbook, we realized there was a problem that had to be addressed,” Fine told Inside Higher Ed Thursday.
“I called him when I learned about it,” Fine said of Rodrigues. He said he then “talked to him a half a dozen times about it, because it kept getting worse” as he found other institutions were also using the textbook.
Fine is the same lawmaker who applied to lead Florida Atlantic University, saying DeSantis had assured him he would “waltz right in” to the presidency there. But the university’s Board of Trustees didn’t choose him as a finalist. Rodrigues then halted that presidential search, citing “concerning information” and “anomalies,” though critics alleged it was because Fine wasn’t a finalist.
The state system did provide Inside Higher Ed with an email that Rodrigues addressed to university presidents last Friday about the statewide review. It doesn’t reveal the genesis of the review—or other important details, like how Rodrigues defines antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias—but it explains some of what will happen next.
The review apparently will start with a digital search. “We are going to conduct a keyword search on course descriptions and course syllabi,” Rodrigues told the presidents. “Any course that contains the following keywords: Israel, Israeli, Palestine, Palestinian, Middle East, Zionism, Zionist, Judaism, Jewish, or Jews will be flagged for review. This process will ensure that all universities are reviewing the same courses, and nothing falls through the cracks.”
Then, “Each university should then initiate a faculty review that will need to be completed by the conclusion of the fall semester,” Rodrigues wrote. “This review should flag all instances of either antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias identified and report that information to my office.”
The email doesn’t say how universities will or must choose the faculty members who will review these courses, nor does it say what will happen to the courses—or the professors teaching them—that are ultimately reported to Rodrigues as containing antisemitism or anti-Israel bias.
But what happened at Florida International University might shed some light.
‘Anti-Semitic Questions’
A lot happened on June 26. First, the X account Documenting Israel, which now has around 19,500 followers, posted this: “I was just sent these by someone who is writing a test at @FIU (Florida International University) and see the anti-Semitic questions being asked!” (The account describes itself as “Documenting events related to Israel from within Israel. Many things you won’t see in the mainstream media. Monitoring Arab media.”)
The post contained what appear to be screenshots of multiple-choice quiz questions, including “Terrorism began with two Zionist organizations, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and” with a blank. Also, “When Israelis practice terrorism, they often refer to it as—”. The possible answers to the second question included “proactive attacks,” “self-defense,” “military action” and “terrorist defensive strategy.”
Documenting Israel followed up that post with another providing what it said was the name and photo of the course’s adjunct professor: Mario Reyes. (Inside Higher Ed was unable to reach him Thursday.)
That same day, Fine reposted Documenting Israel’s initial post on his personal account and added, “I will be speaking to @FIU as soon as possible. There is no room for #MuslimTerror at Florida’s state universities.” Roughly two hours later, Florida International University’s own X account responded to Documenting Israel’s initial post, writing, “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We have already started a review of the circumstances.”
This all got the attention of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, according to Graham Piro, FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund fellow. The university’s reply was an example of something FIRE advises universities not to do: publicly announce an investigation that wasn’t yet over. Piro said that even if such an investigation ultimately clears a faculty member, the announcement can bring public pressure on the professor and have a chilling effect in and of itself.
“As use of the questions is clearly a legitimate pedagogical practice that the First Amendment protects, we urge FIU to cease its review of Reyes’s course materials and to refrain in the future from investigating its faculty’s protected pedagogical choices,” Piro wrote to the university. The university didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday.
But the controversy over the FIU course continued. On June 28, a local online outlet called Coral Springs Talk posted an article under the headline “Coral Springs Students Shocked by Antisemitic Material Taught in FIU Class.” Later, the outlet would give itself credit for having sparked the statewide review.
Fine, in his interview with Inside Higher Ed Thursday, placed blame for what happened at the university on the textbook used in the Terrorism and Homeland Security class, along with a faculty committee that approved the use of the textbook. And he said he learned the issue wasn’t contained to one university.
“This Muslim terror textbook was not only being used at FIU, it was being used at three other universities in Florida,” he said, though he didn’t immediately recall them Thursday. He said the faculty committees who reviewed the book either support “Muslim terror” or don’t read the textbooks they’re supposed to review.
The Orlando Sentinel has reported that Kathleen Plinske, president of Valencia College, said that all 28 colleges within the Florida College System—a group of public institutions separate from the State University System of Florida—checked for the book and confirmed they didn’t use it or they would get rid of it. Spokespeople for Valencia College, the College System and the Florida Department of Education, which oversees the College System, didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday as to whether there’s a similar statewide search for antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias among the colleges.
The American Association of University Professors has warned against “overly broad” definitions of antisemitism as a threat to academic freedom. Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, who is Jewish, said the statewide review is “extremely threatening because faculty are going to self-censor.”
Piro said, “We’re definitely concerned about it. It does seem like it is very likely to chill the ability of faculty members to determine their own course content.”
But Fine doesn’t seem too concerned about chilling. In fact, he said he’s going to take more actions against public university professors regarding antisemitism, but he didn’t know yet what form that would take. Republican lawmakers in Florida have already weakened tenure protections and tried to restrict teaching about race and other issues.
“I am sick and tired of faculty members at these schools who think that they are better than what they are—they are state employees,” Fine said. State employees are accountable to Florida taxpayers, he said, and “we’re going to remind public university faculty members that they are state employees.”