A Cold War Program Gets Hijacked

Neetu Arnold

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from an article originally published by the Wall Street Journal on October 9, 2022. To read the rest of the article, click here


A Cold War-era federal program has wandered far from its national-security mission and into the woke follies that permeate much of American education. For decades, U.S. colleges and universities have received taxpayer dollars through the Education Department’s National Resource Centers, a program intended to bolster U.S. national security at the height of tension with the Soviet Union. But more recently National Resource Centers are promoting unserious academic research or causes irrelevant to national security.

NRC-funded efforts included a training institute last year at the University of Texas, Austin, where teachers of pre-kindergartners through fifth graders were schooled in “(Un)learning patterns of whiteness in literacy teaching.” In May, Stanford University’s Center for Latin American Studies sponsored a webinar about using picture books to initiate “conversations centered on advocacy for LGBT Latina/o(x) youth.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia hosted a graduate student who uses critical race theory in her research on Russia and Ukraine. ...

The full article can be read online here.


Neetu Arnold is senior research associate at the National Association of Scholars and the author of Hijacked: The Capture of America's Middle East Studies Centers. Follow her on Twitter @neetu_arnold.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

  • Share

Most Commented

January 9, 2023

1.

NAS Celebrates the Nomination of Reform-Minded Trustees to the New College of Florida Board

The National Association of Scholars is delighted with Governor Ron DeSantis’ nomination of six education reformers to the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida....

December 7, 2022

2.

New Study Tracks Rise of DEI in STEM Departments, Associations, Grants, and Literature

A new study published today by the National Association of Scholars, Ideological Intensification, offers an in-depth quantitative analysis of just how far DEI has advanced into STEM fields....

January 5, 2023

3.

NAS Condemns the Attacks against Jordan Peterson

The National Association of Scholars condemns the unrelenting illiberal attacks being levied against Dr. Peterson and against anyone who dares push back against the enemies of intellectual f......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

October 12, 2010

2.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...

September 19, 2022

3.

How Many Confucius Institutes Are in the United States?

UPDATED: We're keeping track of all Confucius Institutes in the United States, including those that remain open, those that closed, and those that have announced their closing....