The Education Department led by Betsy DeVos supported the Consortium of Middle East Studies (CMES) in Duke University-University of North Carolina consortium; this is despite her disagreement with CMES pro-Islam course content, which was supposedly not aligned with the national interest.
As things stand, for now, the Duke-UNC CMES has received their funding for the year 2019-20. The federal intervention raised a lot of eyebrows, with many education activists questioning the methods of government. When the Education Department was questioned via a public record request, things started becoming clearer. The Education Department said that the government is still reviewing the funding.
On the other hand, Giovanni Zanalda, who is the director of International and Global Studies sent an email to the department suggesting that every other department under his purview, except CMES, has received their funding for the year 2019-20.
Changes in CMES not made public
However, it is suspected that there are some changes in the consortium which were not made public. As per the previous letter by the Department of Education, the consortium was asked to make changes to the content, showing how much the Jews, Christians, and other minorities have suffered in the middle east. If the consortium refused to these changes, their fundings would have stopped.
Duke-UNC CMES has the highest number of Urdu learners in the country. In terms of Arabic and Turkish, it stands at 8th position.
The consortium is a National Resource Center that teaches the languages in the middle east, their history, complete understanding of the places of origin and education on global issues. Every year the consortium receives funding of $235,000.
The American Civil Liberties Union had written a letter in which they demanded Betsy DeVos and the DoE to step back from investigating the CMES, accusing that the Trump administration has a ‘deep-seated anti-Muslim bias’.
