Congressman Calls for Investigation of Berkeley’s Center for Middle East Studies

Rep. Doug Lamborn believes there are “serious legal issues” regarding use of federal funds at Berkeley’s Center for Middle East Studies.

Congressional oversight of the possible misuse of federal Title VI funds to promote politicized teaching and scholarship is at last receiving sustained attention. Campus Watch’s latest research, appearing yesterday at The American Spectator, examines a the latest development in this ongoing story.

In a letter sent earlier this week to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) became the fourth Congressman in just over a year to ask the Department of Education (DoE) to investigate a university for misusing federal funds awarded to Middle East studies centers under Title VI of the Higher Education Act.

Arguing that administrators at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) “cannot distinguish between speech protected under the First Amendment and misallocating government funding,” Lamborn charges UCB’s Title VI-supported Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) with spending taxpayer dollars “for purposes contrary to those required by Congress when it created Title VI.”

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Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.
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