...
Hartle denied that "colleges and universities" were trying to kill the
NSEP, and Merkx denied that any Title VI centers were boycotting the
NSEP. This was nothing but sleight of hand. For years, the Middle East,
African, and Latin American-studies associations have called for a
boycott of the NSEP, and other national-security scholarships. To get
around that fact, Hartle said that no "colleges or universities" were
boycotting the NSEP, and Merkx said that no actual Title VI-funded
centers were boycotting.
...
The most dramatic moment of the House hearing came when I revealed the
existence of a memo written under the name of David Wiley -- a professor
of African studies, past president of the African Studies Association,
and co-chairperson of the Council of Directors of Title VI National
Resource Centers. The Wiley memo confirms that just two months after
9/11, Title VI African-studies-center directors voted unanimously
"...not to apply for or accept military or intelligence funding,
including from the NSEP." The memo went on to affirm that this boycott
of the NSEP and other national-security-related scholarships was of long
standing. So Merkx's testimony to the House was demonstrably false. Not
only area-studies associations, but Title VI African-studies centers
themselves had voted unanimously to boycott the NSEP. The very
professors who've been taking federal funds on grounds of "national
security" have been working to defeat a core purpose of their own
subsidies.
But why had the directors of African-studies centers voted to reaffirm a
boycott that had existed for years? The Wiley memo makes it clear:
"...there is great dismay among all these Title VI center directors at
the news that the National African Language Resource Center (NALRC) at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken an NSEP institutional
award. It was news that this award had been accepted that precipitated
the formal reaffirmation of the boycott." In other words, Title VI
African-studies centers came together to reaffirm their boycott because
an African-language center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
(hereafter the "Madison center") had decided to break the boycott and
establish a relationship with the NSEP.
I learned all this in 2002, when I obtained a copy of the Wiley boycott
memo. I immediately contacted Wiley himself and asked him if the
Africanist vote to boycott the NSEP implied a shunning of the Madison
center. Wiley said it did, and noted that his own faculty had already
agreed in principle to break off all ties with the Madison center.
...
My initial expose of the boycott -- featuring my interview with Wiley --
came out in May of 2002. The House hearings on Title VI were held in
June of 2003. In the interim, officials of Title VI, including David
Wiley, began to ostentatiously cooperate with the Madison center. Since
then, Title VI officials -- including Wiley -- have issued public
denials of my claim that they have refused cooperation with the Madison
center.
...
Yet compelling evidence now shows that there is in fact a campaign to
force the Madison center to cut its ties with the NSEP. That evidence
consists of e-mail correspondence between Wiley and the director of the
Madison center, and the testimony of Eyamba Bokamba, professor of
linguistics and African languages, and coordinator of the Title VI
program in African languages at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. Bokamba has courageously decided to tell the truth about the
long-standing campaign to prevent Title VI-affiliated professors of
African studies from establishing ties with the NSEP.
Bokamba attended the 2001 conference in Houston where the vote to
reaffirm the Africanist boycott of the NSEP was taken. While Bokamba was
not present at the actual vote, he quickly learned from his colleagues
of plans to sanction the Madison center. And according to Bokamba, Wiley
was the leader of the campaign to bring the Madison center to heel.
"While Professor Wiley has been careful to make a public show of
cooperation with [the Madison center], he has continued nonetheless to
threaten that center with a boycott if it does not sever all ties to the
NSEP." Bokamba continues: "Professor Wiley has persistently engaged in a
campaign of harassment against Professor Antonia Schleicher [director of
the Madison center]. He has repeatedly asked her in writing and at every
face-to-face encounter to promise never to apply for or accept any grant
from the NSEP again."
...
So after the unanimous 2001 vote of Title VI African-studies-center
directors to boycott the NSEP, there does indeed seem to have been a
concerted effort to punish and shun the Madison center. Bokamba learned
of these plans, and Wiley himself confirmed them to me in his 2002
interview. And we know from a 2002 article in The
Chronicle of Higher Education that the Madison center did in fact
feel the pressure. In that article, Antonia Schleicher, director of the
Madison center, reports that African-studies scholars had begun to give
her the cold shoulder.
...
I have copies of several e-mail messages from Wiley to Schleicher
(director of the Madison center). In these messages, Wiley appears to
offer Schleicher his cooperation. Yet Wiley makes it clear that his
offer of cooperation is conditioned on Schleicher's willingness to cut
her ties with the NSEP. In one remarkable letter, Wiley suggests that
Schleicher should publicly disavow my claims that Title VI Africanists
are pressuring her into cutting her ties with the NSEP. Trouble is, in
the very same letter, Wiley pressures Schleicher to cut her ties with
the NSEP!
In another letter, Wiley offers Schleicher a public gesture of
approval — service on her center's board of directors. Obviously,
if the head of the Title VI Africa program, and the leader of the NSEP
boycott, were to serve on Schleicher's board, it would be a sign of
approval that would end any efforts at retaliation against Schleicher.
But here is Wiley's condition: "I definitely would be willing if you were not taking
NSEP awards and joined all the
other Africanist centers and programs in this agreement for the
future."
Bokamba makes the answer clear. He tells me that Antonia Schleicher
is by no means the only Africanist who would like to work with the NSEP.
Bokamba says there are other Africanists, himself included, who would
apply for NSEP institutional grants were it not for "fear of being
ostracized by the Africanist sub-community that follows Professor
Wiley's leadership."
From its origins in the National Defense Education Act of 1958, to the
huge post-9/11 increase in federal subsidies, the Title VI program has
been funded by Congress for the purpose of creating a pool of experts in
foreign languages and cultures. The hope is that these experts might
serve as recruits to positions in international business, the foreign
service, the Peace Corps -- and our defense and intelligence
agencies.
This is so scandalous a story that I checked a little. The 2002 article
in The Chronicle of Higher Education checks out. So does the
Michigan
State letter, a portion of which says
Concerns About Defense Connections
The concern centers on the
fact that funds for NSEP are provided by the Department of Defense to
achieve national security goals. These concerns have been discussed at
Michigan State University and other universities within the higher
education community, and to some extent within the government itself.
Some organizations, such as the American Council on Education, support
the program, as do a large number of U.S. universities and colleges.
Several national area studies associations have taken a position against
NSEP because they believe it will endanger U.S. long-term scholarly
access abroad, affect their relationships with scholars and institutions
in other countries, and associate U.S. academic area studies with more
narrow government policy. In areas where mistrust of the U.S. Government
exists, there are concerns that scholars and students who accept the
funds may be perceived as either current or future employees of a
security agency of U.S. Government security and intelligence agencies
(i.e., CIA, NSC, DIA, etc.). To date, more than 1,750 undergraduates
have received NSEP scholarships, and while none of these students has
suffered any negative consequences abroad from accepting this support,
some individuals continue to be concerned about the security of students
who are funded by NSEP.
I also looked up and found the ACE "Talking Points Refuting Stanley Kurtz's Attack On HEA- Title VI Area Centers". This is older, and about Near Eastern Studies rather than African Studies. Here is part near its beginning, which illustrates its style:
Title VI centers are academic projects administered by applying the standards of free
speech and academic freedom. Neither the national interest nor the development of
knowledge would be served by requiring Title VI centers to read only materials that
Kurtz finds acceptable. In seeking to pursue America's national interests, it is
important for Title VI centers to report accurately what is being said about politics,
global affairs, and even U.S. policy by countries and individuals in foreign regions,
even if what they hear is critical.
Moreover, Kurtz gives the impression that huge amounts are flowing under Title VI grants
to Middle East scholars, when the modest sum of $27 million is all that is available in
the current fiscal year to support all 118 Title VI area studies and language training
in all world areas. In fact, only $3.9 million of Title VI university center funds is
shared by 15 Middle East studies centers -- roughly $250,000 per center.
Kurtz's characterizations of U.S. Middle East scholars at centers receiving federal
funding as "anti-American" and as "those most determined to undermine American foreign
policy" are undocumented and completely false. He does not offer a single example among
such scholars, which is not surprising, because there are none. Rather, he cites a few
pages in one collection of readings from a one-day workshop to attack an entire field of
scholarship. The document he criticizes consists of Xeroxed articles for K-12 teachers
from mainstream publications. He particularly objects to 20 pages (of 212) in the
document designed to consider the question "Why do they [the Muslim world appear to]
hate us?" Not surprisingly, readings on such a question are critical of the United
States.
If this is the best the people who hate Kurtz can come up with, I'll trust Kurtz.
Kurtz's allegations are specific and credible, and he isn't grasping for money in the
same way as area studies programs are. Just looking at the above passage, I find its
assertion that there are exists not a single U.S. Middle East scholar who is anti-
American and wants to undermine U.S. foreign policy incredible. I can well believe they
are not *all* that way-- but none? That is stonewalling. It casts into doubt ACE's
claim that Kurtz has no evidence, particularly since the Kurtz article I linked to
earlier is full of references to specific documents. And then ACE's next two paragraphs
shift the question into whether Title VI Centers should all be run by Kurtz-- a straw
man-- and says that Kurtz "gives the impression" that the centers are getting a lot of
money, whereas it is just $27 million (which seems like a lot of money to me-- but if it
isn't, then the centers should be quite willing to give it up rather than suffer attacks
from people like Kurtz).
[in full at 04.04.02d.htm ]
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