A chemistry professor whose exam question asked students to calculate the lethal dose of a poisonous gas used in Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust has taken a leave of absence, Middlebury College said.

The Vermont liberal arts college said that it�s investigating under the terms of its faculty misconduct policy.

�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,� wrote Middlebury President Laurie Patton last week. �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.�

A review of past exams given by professor Jeff Byers found a second objectionable question making reference to the Ku Klux Klan in an exam given last year. The question appeared to have a humorous intent, but �was gratuitous and offensive,� the school said.

Byers apologized to the college community in an April 10 written statement on the school�s website. He said he gave two exams in the last year that included questions �that were clearly offensive, hurtful, and injurious to our students.�

�I can offer no explanation for my actions other than carelessness and hubris,� he wrote.

The gas chamber exam question came to light in the student-run satirical newspaper, The Local Noodle, according to the student-run newspaper, The Middlebury Campus.

The preamble to the question said, �Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) is a poisonous gas, which Nazi Germany used to horrific ends in the gas chambers during The Holocaust.� The question asked students to calculate the amount of HCN that would give a lethal dose in a particular size room, according to the newspaper.

The school�s Community Bias Response Team, which is charged with assessing and responding to bias incidents, sent out a campuswide email criticizing both the exam question and The Local Noodle for making light of it, The Middlebury Campus reported.

An email sent to a Jewish student group and local Jewish congregation seeking comment was not immediately returned.

On Thursday, Patton, the college president, said in a campuswide email that the college has experienced several incidents of bias in recent weeks �that are causing pain and anger in our community,� but did not specify what those were. She was following up on the school�s decision Wednesday to cancel a lecture by conservative Polish politician Ryszard Legutko because of safety concerns, two years after the school was the site of a rowdy protest of another conservative speaker.

(AP)