(JNS) A 33-year chemistry professor at Middlebury College in Vermont has taken a leave of absence after asking students on a test to compute the destructive dose of the poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide used in Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust. The Vermont school announced the development, in addition to an ongoing investigation to determine if Jeff Byers violated its faculty misconduct policy, on April 10. “This inexplicable failure of judgment trivializes one of the most horrific events in world history, violates core institutional values, and simply has no place on our campus,” said Middlebury president Laurie Patton in a statement. “We expect our faculty to teach and lead with thoughtfulness, good judgment, and maturity. To say we have fallen short in this instance is an understatement.”

The question’s preamble stated, “Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) is a poisonous gas, which Nazi Germany used to horrific ends in the gas chambers during The Holocaust.” It then asked students to calculate how much of the gas would be a deadly amount in a particular-sized room, according to the student newspaper, The Middlebury Campus.

Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center president and CEO Avi Benlolo told JNS, “This is outrageous, and if the allegations are true, the university should enforce a Holocaust-education plan and sensitivity training for this professor, at the very least.”