<
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/06/middle_east/print.html>
I've provided the link to the print format of this piece...for those who have Salon subscriptions I prefer viewing in print since I get to read the whole article at once instead of on multiple pages.
Here are some nice juicy quotes:
At the same time, Martin Kramer, editor of the right-wing Middle East Quarterly, published a book called "Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America," in which he argues that academia, in thrall to romantic third-worldism, has turned a blind eye to the region's dangerous pathologies. Last year Daniel Pipes, a colleague of Kramer's who has since been appointed by President Bush to sit on the U.S. Institute of Peace, launched Campus Watch, a Web site devoted to monitoring Middle Eastern studies departments for signs of anti-American bias. He published dossiers cataloguing the political sins of some of the most respected professors in the field, and invited students to submit reports on their instructors.
Until recently, though, this fight has been rhetorical, confined to Web sites, books, magazines and lectures. Now, with HR 3077, the International Studies in Higher Education Act, the House has taken sides. If it becomes law, it will create a board to monitor how federally funded international-studies centers impact national security. The board will evaluate whether supporters of American foreign policy are adequately represented in university programs. Conservatives, says Kramer, "need to be able to compete on a level playing field with others."
Inherent in the act is the assumption that if most established experts believe American Middle East policy is bad, the flaw lies with the experts, not the policy. "There's the threat that centers will be punished for not toeing the official line out of Washington, which is an unprecedented degree of federal intrusion into a university-based area studies program," says Zachary Lockman, a New York University history professor and director of the school's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.Oh man is there ever some good stuff here...but out of respect of copyright I can't post it. Just looking at the above bit should be enough to turn any self-respecting academic's stomach.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
