Columbia accepting Saudi financing
Campus News
As University of North Carolina faculty members petition the school to reject funding from what they describe as "a conservative philanthropic foundation," The New York Sun reports that Columbia University isn't quite as picky about where its funding comes from. The school has been quietly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from interests in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil company of Saudi Arabia:
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In the past two years, Columbia has come under greater public pressure to disclose its foreign donations, especially from governments suspected of supporting Islamic terrorism.
The New York Sun reported last year that Columbia had failed for years to disclose to the federal Department of Education the foreign gifts it received.
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Among the 22 foreign gifts of $250,000 or more that Columbia disclosed having received in 2003 was a contribution of $250,000 from an unnamed Saudi individual for "social science research."
Among the donors of the $2.1 million Edward Said chair, Columbia reported, were the United Arab Emirates, which gave $200,000, and the Olayan Charitable Trust, a charity associated with a Saudi-based multinational corporation, the Olayan Group.
Saudi Aramco, which the Saudi government purchased from American oil companies in 1980, gives grant money to a number of other Middle Eastern programs at American universities.
In 2003, the oil company's in-house journal, Saudi Aramco World, ran a 6,000-word article on the importance of Middle East centers in helping policy-makers understand the region after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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The article did not mention criticism that Middle Eastern studies has received from lawmakers and some scholars, who argue that the academic field has been corrupted by scholars who oppose America's foreign policy, particularly its friendly terms with Israel, and who gloss over Islamic terrorism.
A research associate at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, Martin Kramer, who has been a vocal critic of Middle Eastern studies in America, said the Saudi kingdom is a logical benefactor of the institute.
"If you're a Saudi, it's very convenient for Rashid Khalidi to claim that the source of America's problems in the region is not their special relationship with Saudi Arabia, but their special relationship with Israel," Mr. Kramer said. "All he has to do is say it's Palestine, stupid."
Posted by Evan on 11 Mar 2005 at 9:01pm
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