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February 2, 2004 issue<br>
Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative<br>
The New Commissars<br>
<a href="http://www.amconmag.com/2_2_04/article.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.amconmag.com/2_2_04/article.html<br><br>
</a>Congress threatens to cut off funding to collegiate Mideast
Studies<br>
departments that refuse to toe the neocon line.<br><br>
By Anders Strindberg<br><br>
======================<br><br>
Universities are no strangers to disagreement and debate. In fact,
the<br>
process of argumentation has always been an important way for academics
to<br>
sharpen theories and refine analyses-be it in biology, economics,
or<br>
political science.<br><br>
Not so in the field of international studies, claim the
intellectual<br>
cadres of the neoconservative movement, who have long been bitter
about<br>
the under-representation of their worldview within academia. This<br>
imbalance, they claim, is not due to any weaknesses in their arguments
but<br>
to the fact that U.S. universities in general, and departments
studying<br>
the Middle East in particular, constitute a monolithic cabal of<br>
America-hating left-wing extremists with whom debate is impossible.<br>
Academia must be brought to heel.<br><br>
Taking advantage of the fears and anxieties following 9/11, and
their<br>
current political clout in Washington, neocon think tanks have waged
a<br>
three-part battle against the academy. First it was necessary to<br>
popularize the view of universities across the country as an
unmitigated<br>
breeding ground for "terrorist thought." This was accompanied
by the<br>
monitoring of scholars and institutions that expressed criticism of
Israel<br>
and of U.S. foreign policy (i.e., "anti-Semitic" and
"anti-American"<br>
views), "naming and shaming" them on the Internet and in
columns and<br>
editorials. While thus "raising public awareness," Congress was
being<br>
lobbied for legislation to confront the threat from this enemy within:
the<br>
fifth column in the ivory tower.<br><br>
The pieces came together on Oct. 21, when the House approved the<br>
International Studies in Higher Education Act, HR 3077. If passed
into<br>
law, the bill would mandate the withdrawal of federal funding from<br>
international-studies departments that fail to display sufficient
support<br>
for U.S. foreign-policy positions, do not contribute to homeland
security,<br>
or fall short of federally mandated standards for "diversity"
of political<br>
perspectives.<br><br>
The language of diversity may be a clever sales pitch, but HR 3077 is
all<br>
about failure to tolerate disagreement. The depiction of university<br>
politics that underpins the bill is deceptive to say the least.
While<br>
academia is doubtless more left-leaning than many other
professional<br>
environments, it is by no means the extremist left-wing monolith that
the<br>
neocons claim. In reality, some institutions tend to be critical of
U.S.<br>
policy and others not; some tend to support Arab positions, while
others<br>
express sympathy for Israel. Some engage in "leftist"
post-colonial<br>
studies, others in quantitative survey work, and other still in
"rightist"<br>
political-culture studies. There is great diversity of perspectives,
and<br>
the debate between them enriches academic inquiry and improves the
general<br>
knowledge base. This is what has made the U.S. home to many of the
finest<br>
academic institutions in the world.<br><br>
Federal funding of international studies-known as Title VI
funding-dates<br>
back to 1965, when the tensions of the Cold War created a need for
greater<br>
understanding of the world. The government decided to contribute
funding<br>
to universities that would enable them to pursue in-depth research
and<br>
education on particular regions, their politics, customs, and languages.
A<br>
requirement for Title VI funding was that the recipient departments<br>
disseminate their knowledge to schools, businesses, industry, and<br>
government through outreach activities. Scholarly matters, such as<br>
theoretical preferences and composition of curricula, were left
entirely<br>
to the departments themselves. Even though the funding program was<br>
established at a time when fear of communism and the Soviet threat
was<br>
peaking, the personal political views of academics were not an
issue.<br><br>
The politicization of Title VI funding came about when pro-Israel
interest<br>
groups grew concerned with criticism of that country. In one of the<br>
earliest and most notorious examples, the Near Eastern Studies Center
at<br>
the University of Arizona stood accused by the Tucson Jewish
Community<br>
Council (TJCC) of anti-Israel bias in their outreach material. The
center<br>
was exonerated by two independent inquiries, but as part of an
acrimonious<br>
process that dragged on for several years in the early 1980s, the
TJCC<br>
demanded that the Department of Education (DOE) evaluate the
political<br>
slant of the center's publications and academic material. The DOE
refused,<br>
referring the complaint to "normal academic channels." When
two<br>
congressmen then intervened on behalf of the TJCC to ask Secretary
of<br>
Education Terrence Bell to freeze the center's Title VI funding,
Bell<br>
responded that "federal interference would be unwarranted and
illegal .<br>
Questions of academic freedom as well as of state and local control
of<br>
education also enter in here."<br><br>
"Among the issues raised in Tucson was the extent to which people
not<br>
involved in the academy should set the parameters for academic
inquiry,"<br>
says Prof. Robert Gimello, who was director of the Near Eastern
Center<br>
when the TJCC launched its attack. That issue is now central to the<br>
controversy surrounding HR 3077. If signed into law, the bill would
create<br>
a congressional committee with oversight responsibilities for
academic<br>
matters that not even the strains of the Cold War managed to
politicize.<br>
Two out of seven committee members would be seconded from the
intelligence<br>
agencies or the Department of Homeland Security, while the remaining
five<br>
would be "experts" in the field of higher education. One could
reasonably<br>
expect these to be drafted from the same think tanks that have most<br>
fiercely lobbied for the bill and that constitute the favorite
recruiting<br>
ground of the current administration.<br><br>
The committee would advise the Secretary of Education, who, in
making<br>
grants, is directed "to take into account the degree to which
activities<br>
of centers, programs, and fellowships at [institutions of higher<br>
education] advance national interests, generate and disseminate<br>
information, and foster debate on U.S. foreign policy from diverse<br>
perspectives." These requirements are as broad as they are unclear,
with<br>
the task of interpretation left up to the committee.<br><br>
Based on the committee's evaluation and advice, federal funding for<br>
research and education would be approved or withheld. The $86.2
million<br>
spent annually on Title VI programs makes up a mere 0.005 percent of
the<br>
federal budget. No less that 118 "national resource centers"
receive<br>
parcels of this funding, however, and many of them are dependent on
it,<br>
especially as it provides "federal endorsement" that encourages
private<br>
and corporate donors.<br><br>
Of these 118 centers, 11 are Middle East studies departments, the
real<br>
targets of the bill. There are obvious reasons for this concern
about<br>
Middle East studies: an area of inquiry that examines questions related
to<br>
Islamism and the Arab-Israeli conflict is a natural focus of neocon<br>
nitpicking.<br><br>
The most prominent advocates of HR 3077 have been Martin Kramer, a
senior<br>
associate in the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and editor
of<br>
the Middle East Quarterly; Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East
Forum<br>
(which publishes the Middle East Quarterly); and Stanley Kurtz, a
fellow<br>
at the Hoover Institution and contributing editor to National Review.
To<br>
gauge the implications of HR 3077, it is instructive to look briefly
at<br>
their various interlocking arguments.<br><br>
In October 2001, Martin Kramer published Ivory Towers on Sand: The
Failure<br>
of Middle Eastern Studies in America. His central claim-that Middle
East<br>
area studies are literally a waste of money-rests on several bases: a)
it<br>
is left-wing, pro-Arab, and shows far too much understanding for
Third<br>
World causes; b) it served to conceal the gathering Islamist threat<br>
against America leading up to 9/11; and c) it studies cultural and<br>
historical topics that are of no consequence to national security.
Kramer<br>
concludes that because the security of the state demands research
focused<br>
on our ever-plotting Muslim and Arab enemies, federally funded Middle
East<br>
scholars must be mobilized to this end. The study of terrorism, he
argues,<br>
must override the study of culture and history.<br><br>
One of the many things that Kramer ignores is that since the early
1970s,<br>
a separate field within the social sciences called "terrorism
studies" has<br>
emerged and expanded exponentially. Research is focused on the
causes,<br>
dynamics, and remedies of terrorism, and co-operation between
academics<br>
and the intelligence agencies is the order of the day. Even within
this<br>
field, however, the most constructive contributions tend to come
from<br>
those who study not only terrorist tactics or strategy, but also
the<br>
social, cultural, and historical backgrounds of those classified as<br>
terrorists-the stuff that Kramer thinks is useless simply because it
is<br>
not obvious.<br><br>
Daniel Pipes, a recent presidential appointee to the Board of Directors
of<br>
the United States Institute of Peace, has complemented Kramer's<br>
accusations by creating Campus Watch, a self-appointed, on-line
thought<br>
police. Campus Watch monitors institutions, faculty, and campus
activities<br>
and reports instances of "extremism," "analytical
failure," and<br>
"apologetics" on its Web site. It has encouraged students to
inform on<br>
professors that express the wrong views and briefly maintained
online<br>
"dossiers" on outspoken scholars. (It had to remove these
dossiers from<br>
its site because the personal harassment of individuals looked far
too<br>
much like an assault on the diversity of opinions that Campus Watch<br>
claimed to defend.)<br><br>
Pipes has taken credit on behalf of Campus Watch for the advancement of
HR<br>
3077, and it is therefore warranted to ask what kind of opinions merit
his<br>
organization's censure. Professor Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University
is<br>
attacked for having remarked, "People near and dear to me, whether
they<br>
live in downtown Manhattan, in Kandahar, in Ramallah, in Jerusalem, or
in<br>
Baghdad, are at the mercy of US foreign policies." The late<br>
Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, Pipes has railed, "calls
the<br>
U.S. policy in Iraq a 'grotesque show' perpetrated by a 'small cabal'
of<br>
unelected individuals who hijacked U.S. policy. He accuses 'George
Bush<br>
and his minions' of hiding their imperialist grab for 'oil and
hegemony'<br>
under a false intent to build democracy and human rights." Prof.
Stephen<br>
Zunes of the University of San Francisco is reported to have said,<br>
"Zionist money is de facto U.S. foreign policy." These remarks
range from<br>
the perceptive to the controversial. That Campus Watch uses them as<br>
examples of intolerable speech should give some indication of the<br>
forthcoming interpretation of HR 3077.<br><br>
Stanley Kurtz has written extensively on the need to curb academia and
was<br>
invited to testify before a congressional committee in June 2003 about
the<br>
need for legislation. Virtually volunteering his services (and those
of<br>
Pipes and Kramer, to whom he paid due homage), Kurtz expanded on
his<br>
belief that academia is characterized by "intellectual failure and
moral<br>
bankruptcy," suggesting that, "instead of restricting the
membership of<br>
[the congressional oversight] committees to scholars, policy makers
and<br>
policy experts from think tanks need to be empowered to sit on such<br>
panels." Congress bought it, passing HR 3077 unanimously.<br><br>
While there are doubtless problems in academia, that scholars have
views<br>
is not one of them. HR 3077 talks of diversity but rather aims to
mute<br>
criticism of the neocon agenda. If their concern were truly to
enhance<br>
national security, the neocons-not known for their adversity to
spending<br>
tax dollars on "urgent matters"-would presumably have proposed
that<br>
another 0.005 percent of the federal budget be appropriated to fund<br>
terrorism studies. Instead, they attempt to strangle the funding of
those<br>
whose views they disagree with. Moreover, if the neocons were even<br>
slightly concerned with conservative principles, rather than the<br>
corporatist mobilization of civil society in the service of their
cause,<br>
they would understand that attaching political strings to federal
funding<br>
of academia is wholly inappropriate.<br><br>
The analytical failures of Middle East scholars are pointed out by
those<br>
who warned us most vociferously of Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction<br>
and told us that liberating Iraq would be a quick thing. Pipes and
Kramer<br>
both wrote their Ph.D. dissertations in medieval Islamology (and at
least<br>
Pipes received Title VI funding), yet now they are complaining about
the<br>
production of useless, non-applied research. The whole mess would
be<br>
simply trivial if it weren't true that wherever political commissars
are<br>
put in place to regulate the academic debate, the debate tends to
suffer.<br>
___________________________________________________<br><br>
<br>
Anders Strindberg is a visiting research fellow at Princeton
University.<br>
He is working on a book about Syrian foreign and domestic
policy<br><br>
<br>
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