The Trump administration has threatened to pull funding from a Middle East studies program offered by Duke University and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, which the administration deems to be too biased in favor of Islam.
This one should prove to be very interesting to unpack. Who did this evaluation? Let’s see the reports. Who are the scholars at these universities and what do they have to say about this? This is a teachable moment.
Some of the Bush 43 advisors advocating the invasion of Iraq were asked if they knew the difference between Sunni and Shia. They said they did not and didn’t care. A fundamental ignorance of that as well as many other things about the politics and culture of the Middle East led to a debacle that has gone on for far too many years. Now, the same type of folks want to limit the still misunderstood tenets of Islam. I call that stupid and contrary to the national interest as well as peace in the world. Remember the adage about forgetting the lessons of history???
Do any of these little Eichmanns think there really is never going to be any blowback on this? I know they’re counting on collective amnesia and will say “I was just following orders!” but they’re never really going to escape that peculiar stench they are adorning themselves as perfume.
This is bullshit. It’s a Middle East studies program, not a Religion Studies or Comparison of World Religions program. Islam is the #1 religion in the Middle East, I think.
Next up: No federal funding for your science programs because they put too much emphasis on, you know, “science” and don’t give sufficient time to discuss creationism and climate change skepticism as being totally valid. No funding for sex education because you don’t discuss the possibility of storks delivering babies.
“The Trump administration has threatened to pull funding from a Middle East studies program offered by Duke University and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, which the administration deems to be too biased in favor of Islam.”
So they’re gonna shut down the Algebra program?
Frank Gaffney or some other famous Islamophobe…
Just need to limit - and by limit I mean avoid or deny - proper attribution.
This isn’t how these things work…a college course is not supposed to support national interests, it is supposed to teach students about the facts of the topic. This is nothing more than a red meat press release to the Trumpian base, aimed at making colleges look like traitors…and probably will end up being linked to Warren in some way, as if she has anything to do with the course. Trump’s base thinks those of us in academics are traitors, things like this are meant to reinforce that, and you can bet it will be a thrust line of attack against Warren if she’s the candidate.
Sikhs get beat up by people who think they are Muslim. So perhaps a bit of education for the bigots would be useful. Flash cards or something, maybe.
Damn straight!
Why can’t Duke “University” -if one wants to call it that - be more like Liberty University which teaches the pros and cons of pool boys vs. personal trainers, and how that fits into a healthy Christian lifestyle?
yay!
This is a President who apparently gets hoodwinked by Netanyahu, and is too stupid too realize that -because he’s just that ignorant.
I’m just surprised he hasn’t pulled funding from climate change seminars because it’s too negative towards fossil fuels and biased against hurricanes.
You just know they originally only wrote ‘Christian’ and got an intern to fill in the names of some other religions from Wikipedia.
The Bush 43 people also went after linguists and interpreters, many happened to be gay.
If we’re going to have some positive influence in the world and reduce the incentive for terrorism these are the first areas not to cut.
What did that general say? More diplomatic corps fewer bullets.
Yes to the first part of this statement, but pretty naive in positing a category called “the facts of the topic,” as if these “facts” were somehow uncontaminated by opinion, interpretation, ideology, the slipperiness of language.
I think it’s a very good idea. If we know too much about Islam and stuff, we might do something sensible.
Tough to take seriously anyone who thinks that the Kurds are a religious minority.
I’m using “facts” as a shorthand for how the topic should be covered…some topics, say physics, is well based in facts and data, while others, say religious studies, have a lot more fluidity in what is discussed in the class. But, you wouldn’t impose a discussion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster onto a religious studies professor, it’s outside the boundaries of the course material. Similarly, you don’t impose nationalistic concerns onto a course studying the Middle East, it’s not appropriate to the course and it’s wrong to think that concerns of the government should be imposed onto a college course of any kind. That kind of thinking is the start of the road to nationalize education so that opinions that don’t agree with the government are squashed…it’s anathema to the liberal education tradition of our nation, and the exact opposite of what makes our college system the best in the world.
It’s no surprise that the Trump administration would do this, or that they would start with an easy target that feeds their base and can be spun so “reasonable people” agree that it’s a bad thing to teach about the Middle East. We don’t want to go anywhere substituting propaganda for education in this nation, it always turns out badly for the nation (and others) whenever that happens.