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2019-09-20 Home Front: Culture Wars

UNC-Duke program too positive on Islam, Trump officials say

[IsraelTimes] The Trump administration is threatening to cut funding for a Middle East studies program run by the University of North Carolina and Duke University, arguing that it’s misusing a federal grant to advance "ideological priorities" and unfairly promote "the positive aspects of Islam" but not Christianity or Judaism.

An August 29 letter from the US Education Department ordered the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies to revise its offerings by September 22 or risk losing future funding from a federal grant that’s awarded to dozens of universities to support foreign language instruction. The consortium received $235,000 from the grant last year, according to Education Department data.

Officials at Duke and at UNC-Chapel Hill, which houses the consortium, declined to comment. The Education Department declined to say if it’s examining similar programs at other schools.

Academic freedom advocates say the government could be setting a dangerous precedent if it injects politics into funding decisions. Some said they had never heard of the Education Department asserting control over such minute details of a program’s offerings.

"Is the government now going to judge funding programs based on the opinions of instructors or the approach of each course?" says Henry Reichman, chairman of a committee on academic freedom for the American Association of University Professors. "The odor of right wing political correctness that comes through this definitely could have a chilling effect."

More than a dozen universities receive National Resource Center grants for their Middle East programs, including Columbia, Georgetown, Yale and the University of Texas. The Duke-UNC consortium was founded in 2005 and first received the grant nearly a decade ago.

Posted by trailing wife 2019-09-20 09:02|| || Front Page|| [11135 views ] Top

#1 Thank G*d somebody finally doing something.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-09-20 11:30|| 2019-09-20 11:30|| Front Page Top

#2 judge funding programs based on the opinions of instructors or the approach of each course

Damn right it should. Even the employability of the academics as instructors and administrators should be judged from their ideological leanings.

A State is obligated to not only de-fund an institution that preaches against it, but to regulate curriculum to acceptable standards of liberality within the confines of morality and loyalty to the nation.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-09-20 12:53|| 2019-09-20 12:53|| Front Page Top

#3 Opening sentence says the Trump administration is threatening to do something. What are the odds the actually do?

Posted by jpal 2019-09-20 12:59|| 2019-09-20 12:59|| Front Page Top

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