Will
Directors of Three Title VI Middle East Studies Centers Boycott Israeli
Universities?
by Winfield Myers
• Dec 5, 2014 at 3:43 pm
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Three of six directors of federally-funded university Middle East
studies centers who signed
a letter
pledging "not to collaborate on projects and events involving
Israeli academic institutions" have yet to clarify whether they
spoke for their centers or merely for themselves. They are:
- miriam cooke,
Middle East Studies Center, Duke.
- John Esposito, Prince
Alwaleed bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding,
Georgetown.
- Osama Abi-Mershed,
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University.
CW
revealed in September that Abi-Mershed's claim that "we are not
tax supported" was refuted by his dean, who confirmed that,
"the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies has been, and we hope will
remain, a recipient of Title VI designation and support."
Recently, New York University dean for the humanities Joy Connolly
confirmed that in pledging to boycott Israeli academic institutions,
incoming director of the taxpayer-supported Hagop Kevorkian Center for
Near Eastern Studies Helga
Tawil-Souri speaks only for herself and not for her center or NYU. Lila Abu-Lughod,
director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, and Gabriel
Piterberg, who directs the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the
University of California, Los Angeles, confirmed earlier that their
pledges were merely personal and will not affect the centers they lead.
As CW has
noted, directors of U.S. Department of Education Title VI National
Resource Centers are administrators of bodies required by the Higher
Education Opportunity Act to give "assurances"
that they will "maintain
linkages with overseas institutions of higher education and other
organizations that may contribute to the teaching and research of the
Center."
Therefore, if their pledges aren't simply personal but apply to the
centers they lead, they stand in conflict with the assurances they gave
in exchange for federal funds.
Did Osama Abi-Mershed, miriam cooke, and John Esposito pledge their
personal boycott of Israeli institutions? Or do they speak for the
centers they lead?
Taxpayers deserve to know if their dollars are being used to support
academic centers that fail to follow federal policy.
Winfield Myers is director of academic affairs and director, Campus
Watch, a project of the Middle
East Forum.
This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
Related Items
|
No comments:
Post a Comment