MIAMI SHORES, Fla. – Barry University in Miami Shores is considering legal options after a video released by a conservative activist organization, Project Veritas, claimed faculty at the school supports Islamic State terrorists.
"I'm incensed. It's an insult to who we are," Barry University President Sister Linda Bevilacqua said Monday afternoon after news outlets worldwide reported on the video.
Watching and listening to the nine-minute recording reveals an edited, out-of-context pitch by a student looking for help starting a campus club, as she recorded undercover video and audio of her conversations with various faculty members.
The student, senior Laura Loomer, described the club as a humanitarian effort, with a goal of helping women and children with support and educational supplies.
The video released claims the faculty members' answers and advice translate into apparent support of Islamic State terrorists.
Loomer is an honors student majoring in communications and is president of Barry University's Young Republicans Club.
James O'Keefe, the head of Project Veritas, told Local 10 News that Loomer contacted him and volunteered to make the video after seeing a similarly staged video the group produced and released at Cornell University.
Because Loomer did not inform her advisers she was recording their conversations and they did not consent to it, the recording may be illegal under Florida law.
Barry administrators said Loomer not only breached Florida law, but also journalistic ethics.
(Editor's note: In a previous version of the attached video, Local 10 News reported that Project Veritas head James O'Keefe pleaded guilty in 2010 to federal charges stemming from an incident at a Democratic Louisiana senator's office. We want to make clear that, as federal documents show, O'Keefe pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of entering federal property by false pretenses, which is a misdemeanor.)
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ISIS-affiliated attackers killed at least 129 people in Paris Friday in coordinated attacks at six locations throughout the city. The attacks set off police raids, arrests and other detentions in France, airstrikes in Syria against ISIS and condemnation around the world.Three teams of terrorists staged coordinated attacks at six locations throughout Paris late Friday, including a concert hall, the Stade de France and at least two restaurants, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. At least 352 people were wounded in the attack, 99 of them seriously. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks.President Barack Obama addressed the nation in September 2014 on his plan for dealing with threats posed by the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS.With its multi-pronged assault across central and northern Iraq in 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has usurped Al-Qaeda as the most powerful and effective extreme jihadist group in the world.The group was formed in 2006 as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), eventually adding Syria to its name.While its exact size is unclear, the group is thought to include thousands of fighters.ISIS has been led by a man named Abu Bakr al Baghdadi since 2010. Not much is known about him, but a biography posted on jihadist websites last year said he held a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a university in the capital. He also served four years in a U.S. prison camp for insurgents in southern Iraq.The group has exploited a growing perception among many Sunni Muslims that they are being persecuted by the Shia-dominated government led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, starved of resources and excluded from a share of power.It wants to establish an Islamic caliphate, or state, stretching across the region ruled by Sharia law.ISIS is highly fanatical, killing Shia Muslims and Christians whenever possible, as well as militarily efficient and under tight direction by top leaders. Here, they are purported to be shown executing Iraqi security forces.Iraqi police and security forces were said to be so scared of ISIS fighters that they stripped off their uniforms and fled cities like Mosul and Tikrit so they could not be identified.ISIS seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in early June 2014 and has threatened to march into Baghdad. The northwest Iraqi city of Tal Afar has also fallen to ISIS, as have two villages northeast of Baghdad.The group subsequently beheaded two American journalists, claiming their deaths were in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes targeting ISIS. A video was released showing James Foley's (right) death on Aug. 19, 2014, and a video showing the death of Steven Sotloff (right) was released Sept. 2, 2014.The U.S. began conducting airstrikes against checkpoints and strongholds of ISIS militants in mid-August. It also conducted humanitarian airdrops to help trapped groups of Yazidis, a religious minority and one of the groups ISIS has targeted.ISIS video published in early 2015 appear to show the beheadings of Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.U.S. humanitarian worker Kayla Mueller was reportedly killed while being held captive by ISIS in February 2015.In February of 2015, Egypt launched airstrikes aimed at ISIS-affiliated jihadists in Libya who are believed to have killed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, including about a dozen whose beheadings are featured in a video published by the organization.In May 2015, ISIS forces claimed the key Iraqi city of Ramadi -- the capital of Anbar province which U.S. forces fought bitterly for control of in 2005 and 2006. Learn more about ISIS.In May 2015, ISIS forces extended their control around the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. The capture of Syria's ancient city, about 150 miles northeast of Damascus, threatens a UNESCO World Heritage Site described as having "stood at the crossroads of several civilizations,"In August 2015, a young couple was accused of conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. The soon-to-be-wed couple were allegedly going to fly to Europe, eventually arriving in Syria. Jaelyn Delshaun Young and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla were allegedly planning to use a honeymoon trip as a cover-up.In August 2015, ISIS posted an image online that appears to show that ISIS captive Tomislav Salopek of Croatia had been beheaded. Salopek was kidnapped July 22 in the area of Cairo, and worked for a French geoscience firm.In announcing a drone strike in November, the Pentagon did not say definitively that Mohammed Emwazi, aka "Jihadi John," had been killed. But officials expressed confidence he is dead. Emwazi was featured in the beheading videos of American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley.
ISIS-affiliated attackers killed at least 129 people in Paris Friday in coordinated attacks at six locations throughout the city. The attacks set off police raids, arrests and other detentions in France, airstrikes in Syria against ISIS and condemnation around the world.
Glenna Milberg joined Local 10 News in September 1999 to report on South Florida's top stories and community issues. She also serves as host on Local 10's public affairs broadcast, "This Week in South Florida."
