Julio Pino

Julio Cesar Pino is a former tenured Associate Professor of History at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

Biography Julio Cesar Pino was born in Havana, Cuba in 1960. He moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1968.

Pino received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991.

Political controversies Pino has been involved in a series of controversies relating to American foreign policy, Islam, suicide bombing, jihad, and Israel. These include a 2012 newspaper column praising the actions of the terrorist who carried out the Kiryat Yovel supermarket bombing, and a letter critical of American policy that read, in part, "You attack, and continue to attack, us everywhere... The ill done to the Muslim nations must be requited." In 2011 he was investigated by the Secret Service after calling president Bush a "cocaine cowboy." Pino has been involved in a series of anti-Israel actions, writing an open letter in 2014 asserting of Israeli Jews that, "The Chosen drain the blood of innocents."

2016 FBI investigation

Julio Pino returned to the headlines in January 2016 when information surfaced that the FBI was interviewing students and professors for possible ties between Pino and ISIS. Pino denied the allegations against him in an email to Inside Higher Ed, saying, "My only commitment is to serve my students as guided by the light of knowledge. I have no ties to any political organization, nor do I recruit for any cause." A university spokesperson confirmed that he is still teaching at this time. Kent State said in a statement that it is cooperating with an ongoing investigation, and said the FBI had assured it there was no threat to the campus. Pino said neither the FBI nor Homeland Security has notified him of any sort of investigation. He stated that he had already planned to retire from the university at the conclusion of the Spring 2018 semester.