Meanwhile,. Arab states send billions to US universities. Who believes they aren't trying to influence academia?
The people screaming about "academic freedom" to force a university to hire a specific person known for his bias seem very unconcerned about the billions that are being sent to universities with the obvious intent to influence the academic direction of the university.
While Ken Roth and The Nation are trying to stoke outrage that Roth was not hired for a fellowship at Harvard University, blaming rich Jewish donors for the decision without any actual evidence, foreign money pours into US universities with the obvious intention of influencing academia - and more.
Here's a
long forgotten incident. In 1989, then-governor Bill Clinton lobbied Saudis to donate to the University of Arkansas. He even met with the Saudi ambassador to the US in 1991. But the Saudis didn't give any money to the university - until Clinton became the Democratic nominee for President in 1992. And only weeks after he became president, the Saudis gave the university $20 million to establish the King Fahd Middle East Studies Center.
Early efforts by oil-rich Arab kingdoms to donate to prestigious universities in the US were heavy handed, and most universities rejected them because of their demands that the money be used in specific, illegal ways. Over time, they moderated their demands - but the attempt to influence is still quite obvious. As Mitchell Bard writes in a
detailed article on the topic:
The Department of Education began to crack down on universities not properly reporting their foreign donations in 2020, under the Trump administration. It created a
website where universities must report the country sources of such donations, although it doesn't publicize the specific donors due to privacy issues.
Although it is unclear now what percentage of total donations have been reported (many retroactively to the early 2000s), the website currently lists these donation totals
to Harvard alone:
Egypt - $44M
Iran(!) - $22K
Jordan - $622K
Kuwait - $22M
Lebanon - $2.5M
Malaysia - $21M
Morocco - $335K
Oman - $1.7M
Pakistan - $1.5M
"State of Palestine"[!] - $1.6M
Qatar - $16M
Saudi Arabia - $61M
Tunisia - $700K
Turkey - $28M
UAE - $80M
The database details some
$10 billion in donations from Arab Gulf countries to US universities, many of them earmarked for specific projects. And, as the article I quoted above details, there is plenty that is not reported here.
Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and other schools are awash in Arab funds. The DoE database lists that Qatari donors alone gave Cornell nearly $1.8 billion!
Who can even pretend that the purpose of these funds is not to influence the universities, their faculties, their students and politicians that have these institutions in their districts?
To be fair, much of the Arab money is earmarked to departments with no political focus, with much being spent for science nd medicine. But a significant amount does go towards Arab studies which are almost reflexively anti-Israel. And sometimes the Arab money is not used to create an anti-Israel chair or department, but to lavishly fund an existing anti-Israel department - after all, there are plenty of anti-Israel academics who don't need Arab money to fund their hate, but they welcome that money to promote it further.
The people screaming about "academic freedom" to force a university to hire a specific person known for his bias seem very unconcerned about the billions that are being sent to universities with the obvious intent to influence the academic direction of the university.
Meanwhile,. Arab states send billions to US universities. Who believes they aren't trying to influence academia? ~ Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News
