At San Diego State University (SDSU), a professor teaching an Arabic Language course passed out a map on the second day of class that labeled the entire country of Israel “Palestine.” Team 10 News reported that some students wanted to protest but were fearful that their grades wold be lowered if they did.
The San Diego chapter of the group “Stand With Us” obtained a copy of the map and promptly alerted its members, urging them to contact the chairman of the university department responsible for the class and the Arabic program director.
The electronic newsletter sent by Stand With Us states that the map “not only fails to label ‘Israel’ as a legitimate country,” but that “it falsely portrays the entire territory of Israel as ‘Palestine.'”
The statement given by the department chair was that the professor wanted to “reflect the view of Arab-speakers in the region.” It added that the professor intended to “have students get into groups and research the political developments of each area on the map, with the assumption that this would lead to a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of the state of Israel,” and concluded that the professor would “distribute a map that includes labels for members of the Arab League as well as Israel.”
SDSU issued a statement saying:
While SDSU encourages scholarly debate and discussion of varying opinions, presenting inaccurate information to students in not acceptable. SDSU’s Provost has conferred with the department chair, who spoke with the faculty member. This inaccurate portrayal will not reoccur.
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