Groups to Congress: No Taxpayer Funds for Biased, Politicized Middle East Studies
Higher Education Act Reform Title VI Must Include Accountability to
Stop Misuse of Funds, Strengthen National Security
WASHINGTON and SAN FRANCISCO, CA. – With Congress considering the
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) in several
individual bills, leading organizations focused on education policy,
the Jewish community, and civil rights announced today a coordinated
effort to provide lawmakers with solutions to prevent misuse of
federal funds under HEA Title VI.
Enacted by Congress as part of the 1965 HEA, Title VI provides federal
funds to 129 international studies and foreign language centers at
universities nationwide. Title VI has the mandate to strengthen U.S.
security by training security specialists and educating the public. In
the absence of congressional oversight, however, these programs have
devolved into hotbeds of anti-American and anti-Israel activity,
disseminating falsehoods both in universities and (through the
congressionally mandated “public outreach” programs) to K-12 teachers
and to the general public.
The undersigned organizations propose implementing two accountability
measures: requiring (1) Title VI recipients to establish grievance
procedures, and (2) the Department of Education to launch a
complaint-resolution process.
“Congress needs to finish the job that it began six years ago,
during the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,” said
Kenneth L. Marcus, president and general counsel for the Louis D.
Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. “At that time, Congress
tried to reform Title VI by requiring recipients to demonstrate that
they will provide “diverse perspectives' in their federally funded
public outreach programs. Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked out as
planned, because Congress never created an accountability system to
ensure that universities would comply properly with the new
requirements. It is time now for Congress to finish the reform process
if it is going to continue funding the program at all."
“The Simon Wiesenthal Center will be calling upon leading Members of
Congress to press the Department of Education to do its job, which
means to demand those who receive Title VI funds guarantee that the
funds will not be used to stifle the free speech of Israel advocates
or to foment anti-Semitism on campus,” said Rabbi Meyer H. May, the
Center's Executive Director.
This effort is anchored in research. We attach two reports that detail
problems in existing Middle East Studies programs, with specific
examples of anti-American and anti-Israel bias in Title VI-funded
institution: (1) The AMCHA Initiative’s research into three years of
public outreach activities of UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies and
(2) the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law’s white
paper explaining the need for Title VI to be reformed or eliminated.
The two reports and the full joint statement from all the involved
organizations are available here:
•Antisemitic Activity and Anti-Israel Bias At the Center for Near East
Studies, University of California at Los Angeles
• “The Morass of Middle East Studies: Title VI of the Higher Education
Act and Federally Funded Area Studies”
The following organizations are part of this coordinated effort:
· Accuracy in Academia
· AMCHA Initiative
· American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
· Endowment for Middle East Truth
· The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
· Middle East Forum
· Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
· Simon Wiesenthal Center
· Union of Orthodox Jewish Organizations
· Zionist Organization of America
For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations
Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on
Facebook,www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow
@simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=8776547&ct=14199659¬oc=1
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