Earlier this month we posted a story about three students at Florida Atlantic University who had accepted disciplinary action from the university including a “reeducation” curriculum from the pro-Israel group the Anti-Defamation League because they had disrupted an April speech on campus by an Israeli colonel who participated in the Gaza slaughter called Cast Lead four years ago. Among other actions, the students had held up a sign calling the colonel a war criminal. They said they accepted “reeducation” because the alternative was a harsher discipline.

Electronic Intifada also used the term “reeducation” in its headline, and the story was widely reposted.

FAU President Dennis Crudele is pushing back against the reports. He says FAU is a “marketplace of ideas.” If the students accepted disciplinary measures, they did so voluntarily, he says:

The University, as part of its student disciplinary process, provides the option for all students engaged in that process to enter into voluntary resolutions that are mutually agreed upon. Any student that objects to a proposed resolution is free to avail him/herself of the University’s full disciplinary process and is not required to accept any condition as part of that voluntary resolution. Further, reports that the anti-bias and diversity training implemented at FAU constitutes “re-education” training are both offensive and grossly inaccurate.

Then the statement says it’s against FAU policy for any student to disrupt a speaker. Sounds churchy: