At a June 2024 teacher workshop put together by the African Studies Association Outreach Council, which “promotes the teaching of Africa in K-16 classrooms,” one presenter told attendees that “Trumpism and MAGA Republicans . . . have been the instigators and enablers of the move toward censorship and reversal of affirmative action and DEI. And this has major effects on what we teach and how we teach African history.”
Perhaps such rhetoric is typical for a training session on “Decolonizing African History in the Classroom.” But that does not explain why the university programs that organized this event enjoy federal funding under a grant program meant to bolster American national security.
Since the 1950s, “area studies” centers have received federal grants through the Department of Education’s National Resource Centers (NRC) program. Unlike other federal grants to universities, which go primarily to research projects, NRC funding not only subsidizes research but also academic centers that conduct outreach programs and create instructional materials. These centers were created to strengthen Americans’ language skills and knowledge of the world, particularly those who would work for the federal government. Today, the centers push left-wing activism, often in ways hostile to the United States and its interests. Congress and a new presidential administration looking to end publicly funded left-wing radicalism should take the opportunity to abolish them.
Consider, for example, George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies. It hosted several events in 2024 that pushed virulently anti-Israel perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict. One event that covered Israel’s pager offensive against Hezbollah terrorists featured speakers who characterized the attacks as “part of an expanded Israeli war machine that continues to commit a genocide in Gaza.” Another event hosted GWU professor Melani McAlister in a discussion about her recent book on the Israel-Gaza conflict, where she noted that it “narrate[s] the experience of being complicit as an American in watching this genocide.” No concurrent counterbalancing pro-Israel events were identifiable, despite a 2024 requirement that centers receiving NRC funds must represent “diverse perspectives.”
Though Middle East NRCs have received the bulk of criticism for their biased programming, radicalism is endemic across grant recipients. In its funding renewal application, Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies proudly states that it works closely with the DEI and Social Justice offices. Its social justice priorities are reflected in the courses advertised to students: “The Political Economy of Racism: Erasures, Slavery, Eviction, and Fables of Whiteness;” “Evolutionary Biology of Women (Womxn);” “Racial Domination, Racial Progress.”
The Atlanta Global Studies Center, a partnership between Georgia Tech and Georgia State University, hosted a workshop for K-to-20 (kindergarten through graduate school) Arabic language teachers in March 2024. The workshop encouraged teachers to incorporate social justice into their Arabic classes. Teachers were even provided a rubric to evaluate how well students understood social justice topics. The event was supported both through NRC funds and by Qatar Foundation International, the American arm of the Qatar state-funded nonprofit.
CU–Boulder’s Center for Asian Studies hosted a symposium on the climate justice movement. One session brought a “feminist political ecology lens to critical infrastructure studies” to explore how “gendered infrastructures” make it hard for Indians to access water. Another session discussed “Queering Environmental Relations between Cambodia and China.”
A separate seminar, “Power Plays: Colonialism, Imperialism, and the Making of National Sports in South and Southeast Asia,” instructed K-to-12 teachers how to use sports to teach students about “colonialism and national identity.” The session featured a professor in “critical sports studies” who talked about how the NBA engages in “cultural imperialism” because it “takes attention away” from basketball leagues in other countries.
When NRCs aren’t pushing radical left-wing politics, they barely engage in the policy-relevant regional analysis that once justified their funding. This shift is evident in the frivolous teacher-training sessions hosted by Ohio State NRCs like “What Makes K-pop? The Importance of K-pop Fandom” and “Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization.”
The nearly $30 million that the United States spends on the NRC program does significant damage. Because the centers are supposed to conduct outreach activities, which often involves K–12 teachers, their radicalism is not confined to academia. It seeps into children’s classrooms, where it skews the way kids are taught about global affairs.
The Trump administration should rethink federal support for these programs. Precedent exists for doing so: in 2011, Congress made substantial cuts to the NRC program as concerns about biased Middle East programming emerged. Even after these cuts were made, universities have continued to abuse the mission of the NRC program. Instead of promoting knowledge in the American national interest, progressive activists posing as educators are wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous and harmful programs for their own political gain.
The centers have had more than enough chances to change their ways. They have refused to do so. Congress should end funding for the NRC program.
Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images