Joe Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) was called out by Just the News for the outlet’s weekly award for wasteful spending of taxpayer money. DOE was singled out for a program that allocates $2.9 million to 11 Middle East Studies Centers (MESCs) that are affiliated with American universities. The centers promote leftist political causes according to an investigative report by watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.
Education Department funding Middle East Studies Centers pushing ‘anti-West ideologies’: new report | Just The News https://t.co/WCQsHkUlGQ
— Just the News (@JustTheNews) November 13, 2022
OpenTheBooks based its research on an investigation by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) that found the MESCs have “veered from their purpose, now pushing overtly anti-West ideologies focusing on social issues such as Islamophobia and immigration at the university level, and even pushing critical race theory to K–12 educators.”
The NAS report is titled “Hijacked: The Capture of America’s Middle East Studies Centers.”
Some of America’s most prestigious universities were named by NAS for hosting MESCs pressing the radical instruction, including Columbia University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, New York University, the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and the University of Chicago.
NAS analyzed the 11 MESCs out of 50 that operate at universities nationwide that have been designated as “National Resource Centers.” That designation entitles those programs to receive federal funding. Each of those 11 MESCs receive $260,000 annually from the DOE.
MESCs were designed to facilitate the study of Middle Eastern politics, language, and culture. NAS found in its research that the centers “have since shifted their focus to promoting left-wing ideologies.”
NAS senior research associate Neetu Arnold said in a statement that MESCs “today play fast and loose with objective truth.” He added that even though MESC bias “has been documented for years, it’s time for taxpayers to be taken off the hook for these activist centers.”
Neetu wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that his research indicates that National Resource Centers in the Middle East are often involved in “efforts that promote sympathy for illegal immigration and portray borders as inherently immoral.”
Just the News reported that DOE failed to respond to a request for comment on its story regarding the use of millions of taxpayer dollars on leftist and anti-American MESCs.
