Condemnation of Columbia U. for Endangering Int’l Studies in U.S. by Caving to Intrusive Gov’t

Middle East Studies Association | American Comparative Literature Association | American Studies Association | Association for Asian Studies | National Women’s Studies Association | –

We, the Middle East Studies Association joined by the undersigned associations, write to express our deep condemnation of actions taken in the past weeks that imperil the autonomy of centers for regional study at universities across the United States and the future of area studies as a domain of scholarship and research in American higher education.

Two developments have caused alarm among our members: the demands issued by the Trump administration against Columbia University, and the Trump administration’s attempts to dissolve the Department of Education.

First, the administration’s demands to Columbia University to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) department under “administrative receivership” is a fundamental abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. Moreover, Columbia University was not offered basic procedural protections, such as being told the basis of the government’s actions and being given a right of response, before punitive measures were taken against it. Confronted by government threats to research funding, Columbia Board of Trustees not only acquiesced, they also placed the Center for Palestine Studies under receivership as well, unbidden.

If this kind of demand can be issued by federal officials against Columbia University, then no public or private university in the United States can be safe from intrusive government intervention in the governance of its appointments procedures, curriculum, teaching, research activities, faculty scholarship, or internal disciplinary procedures. The decision of Columbia University to acquiesce to the government’s demands threatens to set a precedent that may be the death knell of university autonomy in the United States.

Second, dismantling the Department of Education will have an irreversible impact on the many programs and initiatives that have shaped the core of our research practices and the production of cutting-edge knowledge in area studies fields across the United States.

For the U.S. to continue leading the world in research innovation, the government must not impede the global exchange of research. Such exchange is made more robust by the free and unfettered support of area studies units within universities, which provide the necessary information, training, knowledge, and pathways for innovative research across the globe.

New executive actions dismantling the Department of Education—together with announced funding freezes and cuts and the targeting of individual universities with even more intrusive measures—affect all of higher education.

We demand that:

• Elected officials and civil servants reject the brazen undermining of fundamental protections enshrined in the Constitution, including the separation of powers, and the right to due process.
• Lawmakers recognize and respond to the threat that these actions represent to higher education in general, and to the specific campuses in their districts.
• Lawmakers seek to ensure transparency, accountability, and constitutionality of any and all new policies.
• University and college administrations reject the tactic of withholding or freezing federal funding as a form of blackmail, which seeks to interfere with and destroy the autonomy of higher education and the rights of all members of their campuses to education.
• Columbia University officials, in particular, desist from measures that compromise faculty self-governance in the MESAAS Department and the Center for Palestine Studies.

American Comparative Literature
Association American Studies Association
Association for Asian Studies
Middle East Studies Association
National Women’s Studies Association