Howler of the Month (archive)
"MESA is a pillar of the field, and a constant advocate for the best in scholarship and teaching, as well as the broader principles of academic freedom, with respect to both study and pedagogy,"
Asli Bâl, president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and professor of law at Yale, on MESA's relocation to the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Georgetown University's (GU) Walsh School of Foreign Service; MESA press release, February 21, 2024. (link to source)
We Couldn't Have Said it Better (archive)
"Academics in U.S. universities are far more radical in many ways than the people who run some of the Arab Muslim countries."
William Jacobson, founder of the Legal Insurrection website and clinical professor of law at Cornell University, in a discussion with the Breitbart News Network about the impending vote by the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) on whether to adopt BDS as its official policy. Interview posted at SoundCloud, December 19, 2021. (link to source)
CAMPUS WATCH, a project of the Middle East Forum, reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.