Rep. Doug Lamborn Asks Department of Education to Investigate Middle East Studies at UC Berkeley

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) sent a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos concerning the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) and its potential misuse of federal funds under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA).

By way of background: Title VI grants use taxpayer money to "develop a pool of international experts to meet national needs" in the field of "international studies and world languages." Programs supported by Title VI must "reflect diverse perspectives and a wide range of views" for the purpose of aiding U.S. national security.

The Middle East Forum's Campus Watch and Washington Project have long worked to reform Title VI abuses. Noting that a previous inquiry into Title VI funds at the Duke/UNC Middle East Studies Consortium found that most programs had "little or no relevance to Title VI," and that the programs "lack balance," Lamborn raises a number of concerns about Berkeley's CMES, ranging from politicized professors to murky foreign funding arrangements.

One major worry concerns support for academic boycotts of Israel. Lamborn expresses alarm that CMES Chair Emily Gottreich signed a public letter urging UC Berkley not to restart its year abroad program in Israel. Title VI specifically requires recipients to "promote access to research and training overseas, including through linkages with overseas institutions," which is diametrically opposed to Gottreich's stated views. Carrying out her pledge of opposing study abroad programs with Israel is illegal.

"Boycotts aimed at Israel – and only at Israel – are antisemitic, but when it involves Title VI funds, it's against the law," said Winfield Myers, director of Campus Watch. "Rep. Lamborn is right to raise this issue with the Department of Education."

Another major concern is that, according to the Clarion Project, since 2012 UC Berkley has received $24 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a monarchy whose goals and values differ greatly from America's. This creates a potential conflict of interest if paired with funds intended for U.S. national security.

"Last year, Congress correctly raised the alarm concerning the potential for undue influence on universities when accepting money from Communist China. But authoritarian Middle Eastern countries deserve no less scrutiny," said Cliff Smith, director of the Middle East Forum's Washington Project. "The Department of Education should insist that UC Berkley be fully transparent about how it spends these funds and present solid evidence that it is not intermingling them with Title VI grants intended to benefit U.S. national security."

This is the fourth such letter sent by members of Congress concerning abuses of Title VI funds to Middle East studies centers. Last year, Rep. George Holding (R-NC) wrote a letter concerning Duke University and the University of North Carolina's joint Consortium for Middle East Studies, which resulted in an investigation that found significant abuses. More recently, Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) sent a letter concerning Georgetown University, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) sent a letter about issues at the University of Arizona.

Emily Gottreich is an Adjunct Professor in Global Studies and the Department of History, and Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. She also serves as Chair of the undergraduate major in Middle Eastern Studies. Between 2009-2013 she was the President of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS). She is also Founding Director (along with Aomar Baum, UCLA and Susan Miller, UC Davis) of the MENA-J (MENA Jewry) Program, a UC-systemwide initiative to study, document, and preserve Jewish history in the Middle East and North Africa.

Prof. Gottreich received a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 1999, an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 1992, and a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley in 1989. Her research focuses on Moroccan Jewish history and Muslim-Jewish relations in broader Arab-Islamic contexts.

Courses taught by Prof. Gottreich include: “Jews and Muslims” (GS142/HIS 100), “North Africa: History, Culture, Society” (GS 150), “Scope and Methods of Research in MES” (MES/GS 102), “Survey of World History” (GS 45) and “Senior Thesis in MES” (MES 190/H195).

PUBLICATIONS

Jewish Morocco: A History from Pre-Islamic to Post-Colonial Times. London: I.B. Tauris, 2020.

The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco’s Red City. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007

Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, co-edited with Daniel Schroeter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011

Of Messiahs and Sultans: Shabbatai Zevi and Early Modernity in Morocco,” in Sites of Jewish Memory: Jews in and from Islamic Lands in Modern Times. London: Routledge, 2014.

Historicizing the Concept of ‘Arab Jews’ in the Maghrib,” Jewish Quarterly Review (98, 4) 2008

UC Berkeley Sikh Student Association releases letter in opposition to proposed endowment (02/22/2019): On Feb. 20, UC Berkeley’s Sikh Student Association, or SSA, released a letter expressing opposition to the campus Institute for South Asia Studies’ appeal for an endowment from India. The Institute of South Asia Studies, or ISS, proposed an endowed program with the government of India on Feb. 11, according to the letter. . .The Sikh Student Association is concerned about this partnership, given the tensions that exist between the Sikh community and the government of India, according to the letter. . .SSA also expressed concern about whether the endowed professor would be able to teach Sikh and Punjabi studies without misrepresenting history in favor of India. . .Emily Gottreich, chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, said in an email that “in light of the constantly diminishing state budget allocations to our centers and institutes,” the ISS proposal “is entirely understandable. (Donor) governments or private institutions or individuals, would in any event have a very hard time influencing programming of any sort given the solid safeguards in place at the university against such pressures,” Gottreich said in the email.

(Donor) governments or private institutions or individuals, would in any event have a very hard time influencing programming of any sort given the solid safeguards in place at the university against such pressures,” Gottreich said in the email.

Safeguards are only as good as the people implementing those Safeguards.

The people implementing the Safeguards are often only as stringent as the people enforcing the Safeguards require them to be.

Given Berkley’s reputation for Anti-Israel activity I don’t think either of the of the groups of people I mention give a squat about Safeguards.

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