The battle over federal funding for Middle East and area studies is definitely heating up. My NPR debate with Rashid Khalidi is only the beginning. Up to now the academy has tried leveling false claims about the bill’s supposed interference with academic freedom. Accusations like that may get students to write letters, but they won’t fly with Congress, which understands perfectly well that HR 3077 bans federal control of the college curriculum. So now the academy is trying a more subtle approach. Powerful Deans from UCLA and U.C. Berkeley have published an Op Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle calling for changes to HR 3077. These Deans know better than to claim that HR 3077 will control the classroom. They even accept in principle the idea of a board that monitors the expenditure of federal monies. But they attack the provisions of the bill that put representatives of Defense and Intelligence agencies on the proposed Advisory Board. This attack is based on yet another false characterization of the bill, as Martin Kramer explains. But here’s what’s really going on. These Deans are angling for bogus grounds on which to exclude our defense and intelligence agencies from the proposed Advisory Board for Title VI. That would be an outrage, because it would make Congress complicit in the International Studies Community’s boycott of our defense and intelligence agencies–the very reason why a board is necessary to begin with. These folks have been boycotting our defense and intelligence agencies for years, even though Congress hands them money in the hopes that they will train students who can staff those very agencies. Now the academics say, “Alright, create a board to monitor the program, but keep defense and intelligence off of it.” That’s how they hope to keep their boycotts in place. This cannot be permitted. Consider calling on your Senator to support HR 3077 and to make sure that the legislation isn’t gutted by the higher education lobby.