Here's a small sample of headlines from the last few days alone: The Houthis strike Saudi Arabian cities in significant expansion of the Mideast war. Hostilities with Iran curtails international shipping. Oil nears $100 a barrel as Middle East tensions fuel inflation fears.
How to make sense of this torrent of troubling news? You hardly need to be an expert to understand that three key things are true. First, that the Middle East is a tumultuous region, featuring a wide array of combatants vying for power and influence. Second, in a globalized economy, events in the Middle East have a profound impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. And third, that it therefore behooves us to invest in accurate and dispassionate scholarship that helps us make sense of this immensely complicated region.
Simple, right?
Tell that to our professors. Over the last quarter of a century, American universities have allowed their Middle East scholars to abandon any pretense of objectivity, exchanging the free and unfettered pursuit of ideas for an increasingly dogmatic worldview that praises and supports not America but its deadliest opponents and their murderous ideologies.
Don't take our word for it. Just listen to more than 470 Middle East scholars recently surveyed on the state of their discipline.
The survey's core finding is a troubling one. Scholars from public and private universities alike, from junior faculty to professor's emeritus, agreed that American academia is far, far worse equipped today than it was 25 years ago to pursue truth-seeking as its central mission. When asked to address this statement, 41 percent of respondents said academia was much worse equipped, and 30 percent said it was somewhat worse equipped, which means that 71 percent, or nearly three quarters, believe that the men and women we entrust with educating our children and making sense of the world around us spent the last quarter of a century doing something very different than good, old fashioned research and analysis.
But what, exactly? The professors surveyed had an answer to that, too. Rather than focus on facts, they argued, their colleagues were busy spinning out something much closer to propaganda: 65 percent of respondents, or nearly two thirds, said they agreed or strongly agreed that scholarly or public commentary from within academia has provided intellectual cover or legitimacy for ideologies, regimes, or groups hostile to the United States.
The findings were just as grim when it came to the attacks of September 11, 2001, perhaps the most tragic reminder of why we Americans must never allow ourselves to grow ignorant of the region and its ideologies. When asked, 66 percent of professors said that their students lack a firm understanding of the events leading up to 9/11, and can identify neither the reasons for the attack nor its main culprits.
That finding cuts to the quick, and is sure to shock anyone who witnessed the events of that fateful day and has vowed never to forget. But it's also a sobering—and terrifying—reminder that we're tragically ill-equipped when it comes to making sense of one of the most important regions in the world. As ignorance can produce nothing but bad faith and bad policies, it's time we address this problem urgently, not only because academia is a noble institution without which few societies can expect to thrive but because our national security and economic interests depend on it.
How, then, can we make academia truthful again?
It's a big question, but the answers, thankfully, are fairly simple.
First, we can take simple steps to make sure that hiring and promotion processes consider viewpoint diversity as a major requirement, especially in hotly contested areas like Middle East studies. Long celebrated as an academic buzzword, "diversity" currently means little more than hiring and promoting scholars who may have different ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientations, but who have all committed to one very narrow—and often ideologically inflamed—way of thinking about the world. If we want academia to regain its status, we must make sure that a plethora of opinions are represented on campus, duking it out with facts, analyses, and persuasion.
Second, we should think of academic freedom just as we do about economic freedom, championing a market that celebrates competition rather than vie to concentrate all power in the hands of a few powerful individuals or associations.
And finally, we should understand that a free and thriving academia ought to be a national priority. Rather than leave the conversation about higher education to culture warriors on both ends of the political spectrum who are interested only in mutual destruction, we ought to focus our attention and our resources on identifying and promoting excellence, attracting new candidates, and creating new institutions committed to academia's ancient yet urgent mission—finding out the truth, and sharing it with the rest of us.
None of this is too hard. As we value academic freedom, we ought to cherish academic responsibility as well. And, running a large association of Middle East scholars, we're happy to report there are plenty of brilliant and dedicated scholars out there whose fealty is to truth and excellence, not rabid and radical anti-Western ideologies. It's precisely these individuals, then, we can and must empower, creating academic environments that allow them to thrive.
Unless we do that, and fast, we're doomed to live through another 25 years of decline, finding ourselves increasingly in the dark as enemies all around us continue to attack. Here's hoping, then, that we've truly learned a lesson on 9/11: we can't afford anything but an accurate, dispassionate view of the Middle East.
Asaf Romirowsky is the executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. Alex Joffe is ASMEA's Director of Strategic Affairs