This Oct. 7 protest gathered on the Columbia University campus as a gloomy reminder of the radical tips that have been permeating schools for decades and that have erupted in public, occasionally fiercely, last year.
As they piled onto the public transportation system to acquire their anti-Israel slogans city, it served as a reminder that American taxpayers end up funding all this in both direct and indirect ways. Their money trickle along to the plans and professors who have helped promote this anti-Western, “anti-colonial” view.
For instance, the Department of Education ( ED ) grants to support foreign studies programs and aid students in learning more obscure languages. $ 283 million has been spent just since 2020, with$ 22 million focused particularly on Middle East programs.  ,
The stated people gain is turning out a larger pool of employees in the national security, foreign support, and policy areas who can speak local dialects, understand politics, and represent American interests worldwide.
However, a closer look at the files that are publicly accessible suggests that we might not always be serving our country’s needs. We might instead be assisting in the development of more of the same radical protestors who are more likely to support the United States, Israel, and our friends, who they would sooner refer to as” resident colonialists.” A doctor who has been clearly recognized as a top-funded Middle East program who has supported these suggestions and who has been highlighted on previous ED offer applications is located in each of the three top-funded Middle East applications in the country.
Columbia University
At Columbia, where vocal pro-Israel doctor Shai Davidai was just barred from school, perhaps the most renowned educational still remains teaching: Dr. Joseph Massad. He claimed that Hamas had won the” spectacular success of the Israeli weight.”
Columbia’s Middle East Institute is the number-two funded program since 2020 ($ 2.8 million ), Massad was named on a previous ED grant application among a number of faculty who were” strong on contemporary politics, with tremendous geographic range”.
A certain offer fair$ 653, 632 funded scholarships for individuals and led at least one to get Massad’s class,” Gender and Sexuality in the Egyptian World”. While this learner enjoyed learning about “gender and female ideas”, people were less satisfied.
Reviews of Massad’s courses that were published on Middle East Forum show his prejudice against both Israel and the West. Opinions include:
The doctor ( and, astonishingly, many of the students ) tend to turn conversation sections into’ us vs. them’ responsible game, where they list the West’s several social crimes ad nauseum…
The course is taught dishonestly, and it should be renamed” Why Palestinians Hate Israel” because the participants have little to no knowledge of the subject and form their opinions based on Massad’s courses.
Massad …  , takes a unequivocally anti-U. S. move at every possible option, and often succeeds just at alienating his students.
At risk of being also on the head, he gave a 2002 college talk called” On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy”.
Indiana University
Hoosiers had campus unrest and a problematic professor of their own, making Indiana University the only program that is better funded than Columbia ($ 2.84M).
The Palestinian Solidarity Committee ( PSC), a student organization that preposterously claimed to support “our brothers and sisters being mass-murdered, tortured, killed, and raped in Israel,” was Dr. Abdulkader Sinno’s faculty advisor.
They even protested for a ceasefire with evidence like” Colonialism, Apartheid, Genecide]sic]” and called Israelis “occupiers”.
Sinno left the organization when he allegedly requested a place for a speech to tackle PSC, falsely claiming the event was a part of the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department despite its chair’s objection. He afterward said it was an honest mistake.
In the end, Sinno was barred from advising or teaching undergraduate organizations.
In a letter to Sinno, Vice Provost Carrie Docherty wrote,” I have major concerns about the impact your actions may have on people of the school society.”
Docherty cited his conduct, wisdom, and failure to follow class policies, more alarming, she “referred to instances of’ threatening’ conduct toward a colleague and ‘ a number of bias reports ‘ filed against Sinno”, but omitted finer details.
After his suspension, an undeterred Sinno spoke at an “alternative” graduation for pro-Palestinian activists in May.
His name and resume were included in one of IU’s ED grant applications and, like Massad, he remains teaching.
Georgetown University
Rounding out the top three, Georgetown University ($ 2.64M ) is known for turning out plenty of future diplomats. We were able to locate a well-known professor with contentious ideas and connections once more.
Dr. Fida Adely directs the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies within the School of Foreign Service and teaches “education, labor, development, and gender in the Arab world”.
But she’s also on the National Advisory Board of Faculty for Justice ( FJP) in Palestine, whose members” support the cause of Palestinian liberation through education, advocacy and action”. FJP supports and “amplifies” Students for Justice in Palestine and similar “pro-Palestinian” groups.
Additionally, FJP members back the boycott, divestment, and sanctions ( BDS ) movement and seek to “dismantle” programs to study abroad in Israel.
The group’s” Back to School 2024” statement laments the “mechanisms for suppressing speech, criminalizing protest and weaponizing fragility”, claiming Israel’s military campaign exposes” the depths of settler colonial depravity”.
So, they’ve mastered all the buzzwords.
Furthermore, FJP works “in close collaboration with” staff from Birzeit University, a hotbed of radicalism in the West Bank. The most seats on Birzeit’s student council belong to members of the Hamas-affiliated” Islamic Bloc,” according to its Union of Professors and Employees, who declared that 2023 would be remembered as” the year that Palestinians stood boldly in defense of their homes, humanity, and lives.”
Adely has been covered by numerous other sources, including a 2015 blog post that criticized calls for more “dialogue.” She argues they only serve to “disguise the real issues of settler-colonialism, oppression and occupation, and act as a kind of marketing tool rebranding the reality of separation and apartheid as a fantasy of ‘ coexistence”. The piece includes now-rote accusations that Israel engaged in “ethnic cleansing” and created an “open-air prison” in Gaza.
Naturally, Georgetown featured Adely as a” select faculty expert” on the university’s Middle East and North Africa studies factsheet and on an ED grant application.
Against our National Interest
So where’s the scrutiny of these applications? There is some proof that the administration was kicking the tires during the Trump era. The Department of Education sent a letter to the government of North Carolina in 2019 pleading for changes to its curriculum and spending after discovering how a joint program between Duke and Duke used money.
The letter complains that there is little instruction to help people understand the geopolitical issues posed by American national security and economic needs, but that there is a lot of emphasis on advancing ideological goals. According to department officials, the program lacked a balanced perspective and instead focused on pointless activities like a conference titled” Love and Desire in Modern Iran.”
But today, at the top-funded Middle East programs, it’s still easy to find a litany of now-stereotypical red flags: BDS, anticolonialism, genocide claims — the works.
This money is allocated to further America’s national interest. However, it’s coming from those who criticize our country and its allies. Whether intentional or incompetent, the Department of Education is furthering intellectual subversion, not cultural immersion.
Amber Todoroff is deputy policy editor for OpenTheBooks .com, the nation’s largest private database of public spending. She holds a master’s degree from Oxford University.