In this week's Waste of the Week, a report finds millions of U. S. dollars have been given to 11 American universities that fund overtly anti-West ideologies.
The report, Hijacked: The Capture of America’s Middle East Studies Centers, states these centers have veered far away from their original purpose, now pushing "overtly anti-West ideologies" centering on social issues such as Islamophobia and immigration at the university level.
These universities received a total of $2.9 million for their Middle East studies centers, a government watchdog uncovered. There are 50 Middle East studies centers currently at American universities. Eleven, though, are actually designated as "national resource centers," which use federal funds.
Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com, joined The National Desk Friday with the latest details. Andrzejewski explained the initial purpose of these centers.
"So, in the 1950s – the United States – we faced a crisis. We didn't have language speakers. We didn't have the fundamental knowledge, the institutional knowledge, to be able to engage with a variety of countries from across the world on the global stage," Andrzejewski said. "So we established these centers, and the centers were dedicated to economic and national security and languages and bringing us up to speed on these issues."
However, Andrzejewski said by the 1980s, "foreign governments realized the power of these college institutions" and began funding them.
A recent report by Neetu Arnold, a senior research associate at the National Association of Scholars, found these national resource centers have been hijacked by activists. Andrzejewski pointed out three specific things that are taught nowadays.
"So, number one, they teach that borders are immoral and they're pro-illegal immigration. Number two, on Islamophobia. Sounds like you should certainly teach against it, right? But when taken to the extreme, for instance, on extreme terrorism, a nation like the United States can't even react to it because you're considered discriminatory and your actions are considered extreme. And the third issue there is that all of this is framed in a Neil Marxist teaching of colonialism versus Indigenous people."
Watch the video above for Andrzejewski's full interview with The National Desk's Jan Jeffcoat.