A law professor at a California university faced backlash after he based an exam question about a controversial statement Michael Brown's stepfather made after a grand jury decided not to indict the Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who fatally shot the unarmed black teenager.
Professor Robert Goldstein, of UCLA, asked his law students to hypothetically consider if whether or not Louis Head, Brown's stepfather, should face an indictment for saying "Burn this bitch down!" after Officer Darren Wilson was cleared in the 18-year-old's death, Fox News reported.
It asks students to draw the line between the right to free speech and inciting violence.
"[As] a recent hire in the office, you are asked to write a memo discussing the relevant First Amendment issues in such a prosecution. Write a memo," the exam question reads according to Fox News.
Students took issue with the exam question that comes at a time of national outrage, mass protests and calls for an end to police violence, especially against unarmed black men.
Online commentators also slammed Goldstein's question.
"This particular question places an unfair burden on African-American students to emotionally detach from still-recent acts of essentially legalized terrorism against the African-American community," Elie Mystal wrote in an opinion for the legal blog "Above the Law."
Mystal incorrectly states the question asked students to "advocate in favor of extremist racists in Ferguson," Fox News noted.
Other law professors, however, stood by the question. Law exams often pose questions taken from current events.
"If there are some law students who are such delicate flowers that merely being asked to assess whether certain controversial speech that's been in the news is constitutionally protected, in a class covering the First Amendment of all things, then maybe they should find another profession," professor David Bernstein, of the George Mason University of Law, told Fox News.
Goldstein apologized for the test question, saying he "misjudged the impact."
"I realize now that it was so fraught as to have made this an unnecessarily difficult question to respond to at this time. I am sorry for this," he wrote in an email to his students, the station reported.
Goldstein also said he will not be grading the test question, much to the possible ire of students who spent time slaving over it, critics said.
