The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is accusing a UCF professor of teaching anti-Muslim bigotry.
Officials with the group sent a complaint to the University of Central Florida asking it to review the content of Professor Jonathan Matusitz’s courses.
Matusitz, 36, has taught several communications classes at UCF, including one called Terrorism and Communication and another on intercultural communication. He wrote a book titled “Terrorism and Communication: A Critical Introduction” that was published this year.
The council points to a YouTube video of Matusitz as an example of him sharing “Islamophobic” views with students that are inaccurate, biased and over generalized. UCF says that video, which appears to have been taped in a classroom, actually features an “outside-of-the-classroom presentation” that took place in January.
UCF spokesman Grant Heston said the school has received no complaints about Matusitz’s work in the classroom from students or from any of Matusitz’s colleagues.
In the video, Matusitz stresses the link between terrorism and Islamic culture. He also suggests countries should resist the global spread of Islam, a religion whose followers are Muslim.
“Why do so many Muslims, relative to other religions, want to kill us?,” he says in the video. “The answer is easy, very easy. It is seven letters — culture.”
He also explains that Islam cannot be changed.
“How can you change a movement in which you have 1.5 billion members? It’s impossible,” he says. “We just have to resist it and just elect people who are willing just to resist it and just be true American. That’s the only answer. We’re not going to change Islam.”
Heston said Matusitz was not speaking on behalf of UCF, which does not endorse his views.
At this point, the university is not reviewing the professor’s lessons or work at UCF.
“Dr. Matusitz expressed his opinion, which is his right,” Heston said.
Matusitz, who was given an award by UCF last year for outstanding performance, could not be reached for comment for this article.
The state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations worries that UCF students are being led to believe that all Islamic societies are violent and create terrorists.
“His blatant disregard for distinguishing between terrorists and the Muslim population as a whole is disturbing,” the group writes in the letter it sent to UCF.
The letter is signed by two other organizations — EMERGE-USA, an advocacy group for underrepresented communities such as Muslims, and I Am Choice, an equal-rights advocacy group.
In another YouTube video, Matusitz shares his negative opinion of Islam during a recent panel discussion on U.S. national security.
He cites a statistic that indicates that the vast majority of victims of terrorism were victims of Islamic terrorism.
“So when my colleagues tell me that Islam is a religion of peace, I tell them that Islam is a religion of pieces — piece of body here, piece of body there,” he says in that video.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the national Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he does not understand how a publicly-funded university such as UCF could allow a professor to promote such hateful views.
“What he is teaching his students at UCF is just raw, anti-Muslim hate,” Hooper said. “If somebody suddenly decided they were very fond of the KKK and they were tenured and decided they were going to teach KKK ideologies to the students, I don’t think that would be permitted.”
The American-Islamic Relations group also takes issue with Matusitz’s connection to a national group called ACT! for America, which promotes anti-Islamic views.