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During SDSU\u2019s fall 2025 semester, the School of Journalism and Media Studies brought in an Israeli professor who generated enough student complaints to warrant more rigorous vetting for future visiting professors and fellows.<\/p>\n
The professor, Roni Kuban, is a prominent journalist in Israel, known for his television interviews and documentary-style work. He taught two classes in the fall: Storytelling and Art of the Interview (JMS 527) and Media and Culture in Israel and the Middle East (JMS 552).<\/p>\n
I enrolled in JMS 527 under the impression that it would be a learning opportunity to see what international journalism looks like, but in reality, it was a class structured so poorly that nobody knew what was going on. My classmates and I often referred to the class as the \u201cfever dream\u201d class.<\/p>\n
Students enrolled in 527 and 552 did not have access to a syllabus or full Canvas for the entire semester and had to communicate with Kuban via email, which he often did not respond to. Simultaneously, he was so technologically challenged that he regularly had to call on other students or faculty in the department to set up Zoom meetings, which were integral to class assignments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understood that maybe he would have some difficulties with emails or Canvas, since he\u2019s not from here, but I didn\u2019t expect those problems to last pretty much the entire semester,\u201d JMS student Cindy Avila said. \u201cBecause we didn\u2019t have a real Canvas, I found out my grade when I checked my audit during winter break. I got an A, even though I stopped showing up halfway through the semester.\u201d<\/p>\n
A course centered on storytelling and interviewing repeatedly veered into politically charged discussions that felt disconnected from the curriculum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Specifically, in JMS 527, I remember an instance where Kuban began talking about Israel and the land surrounding it; he referred to the people living there as \u201cJews and non-Arab Jews,\u201d failing to mention Palestine or Palestinians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t a structured examination of media framing or bias. It felt, to many of us, like being exposed to a one-sided narrative without context or critical discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe at one point were watching an animated film where Palestine was never directly mentioned, but they referred to a group as \u2018the enemy,\u2019 and it was fairly easy to infer who they were talking about,\u201d said Miguel Cortez, a student who dropped the class early in the term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no structure, and it just felt like Israeli Defense Force propaganda,\u201d Cortez said.<\/p>\n
I repeatedly reached out to Kuban across multiple platforms to request a comment on these allegations, but he did not respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To be clear, discomfort in a classroom is not inherently a problem. Journalism, especially, requires engaging with difficult topics. But there is a difference between challenging students and subjecting them to your personal narrative. A university classroom should foster critical thinking, not present a single perspective without room for interrogation. He would frequently talk over or interrupt students if they had a difference of opinion or perspective when it came to classroom topics.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s most frustrating is that these issues were both discussed and not discussed by students. There were many whispers among students and even staff in the department about Kuban\u2019s content and capabilities as a professor, to the point that most people knew what was going on to some extent; however, nobody ever made a formal complaint. According to Temple Northup, the director of JMS, nothing could be done because there wasn\u2019t a formal complaint.<\/p>\n
But if it\u2019s your job to monitor the well-being of the department, and you\u2019ve heard problems about a professor through the grapevine, shouldn\u2019t you investigate?<\/p>\n
Kuban isn\u2019t someone they pulled off the street; he has some extremely notable work to his name, including a famous interview<\/a> with Israeli politician and journalist Yinon Magal. A fact which makes this all the more confusing.<\/p>\n Kuban won two Israeli Television Academy Awards: one in 2018 for Best Interview Program and one in 2024 for Best Cultural Program.<\/p>\n Kuban was brought into SDSU via the Murray Galinson San Diego-Israel Initiative\u2019s (MGSDII) Visiting Faculty Program. The Visiting Faculty Program places tenured Israeli professors in various San Diego colleges to \u201cteach contemporary Israeli Studies on San Diego campuses,\u201d according to their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n