UCLA Cuts Off Admission to Islamic Studies Program

From Front Page:

It looks like another victory against Islamofascism is underway. UCLA made a daring move to temporarily freeze all admissions into its Islamic Studies program.

As a result, several protests broke out on October 22nd, 2010, at the UC campus by the Muslim Students Association in wake of the decision. 

Why waste money on an ineffective program that breeds contempt for our nation? These “educational” programs are largely sympathetic to anti-American views that have proven dismal and dangerous in America.

Most individuals assume that Islamic Studies is a respectable program that gives a fair account about the Middle East and Islam to contrast it to our highly Westernized, “Islamophobic” society. As a program greatly entrenched in teaching students that America and Israel are evil, Middle Eastern Studies and its ugly cousin Islamic Studies need to be brought into scope.  Lovely how our tax paying dollars are funding these anti-American projects.  Nevertheless, the decision to cease admissions into the Islamic Studies program is deeply rooted in the following sentiment:

The Academic Senate recommended the admissions freeze at the end of an external review that took place during the 2007-2008 school year…“In general, the Academic Senate will review programs to ensure that there are no problems that impact the quality of student learning,” Garrell said.

The Daily Bruin recounts that the outside review committee — consisting of UCLA and non-UCLA  faculty independent of the Academic Senate — felt compelled to investigate the program after students cited complaints with management and availability of resources.

“The review committee found that students felt that they were not well-taken care…the program was not managed well…”

Stanley Kurtz notes the sobering demise of Middle Eastern Studies as a sham to be reckoned with.

The story begins in the late 1940s, when Middle East “area studies” sprouted in American universities. The founders of this discipline made a pitch for government funding on grounds of national interest…To a degree, their pitch was self-interested. By breaking with the European model of learning based on the command of ancient and modern languages, and instead framing their object of study as a region of strategic value to the nation, apolitical scholars could contemplate fifteenth-century Islamic architecture and still do it on the government’s dime… The decline of Middle Eastern studies is a sobering story of intellectual failure–of the persistent inability of scholars to predict or explain real-world developments in the region of their supposed expertise.