Is Iran Ratcheting Up Influence Peddling in American Universities?

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

The Iran lobby is active in promoting Tehran-friendly professors to universities in America, where they find a warm welcome among sympathetic profs of Middle East studies. Writing atAmerican Thinker, Stephen Schwartz explores this network for Campus Watch: The American academy, which has revealed itself to be markedly susceptible to the intrigues of the Saudi-based radical Wahhabi sect and the Muslim Brotherhood, now faces the challenge of an Iranian radical presence.

Since 2014, admission of Iranian students to U.S. colleges has been permitted by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Iran has yet to flood the U.S. with its own professors. Nevertheless, there are indications that an Iranian wave may soon hit the American academic community. A network of apologists for the Iranian clerical regime already exists within the Middle East studies departments of American educational institutions. How much will this attitude grow in light of the Obama administration’s turn toward Tehran?

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Winfield Myers

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.