Middle East professors all belong to MESA (Middle East Studies Association) which is a cartel funded by Arab nations. The catch is that one cannot get a job in academia teaching Mideast studies without belonging to MESA…..rsk
‘m a professor!” So cried Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) professor Anila Daulatzai as she was forcibly removed from a Southwest Airlines flight for lying about having a life-threatening allergy to the two dogs in the cabin. Unable to provide the required medical certificate, Daulatzai, who had demanded that the dogs be removed, then refused to leave the plane. Daulatzai’s Muslim faith was the likely cause of her aversion to dogs, but it was her dishonesty and unwillingness to cooperate that ended in her arrest.
A former visiting assistant professor of Islamic studies at Harvard Divinity School, Daulatzai has joined the growing ranks of Middle East studies academics who run afoul of the law. Their misdeeds, which range from sexual harassment to domestic abuse and murder to terrorism, demonstrate that being “a professor” is no barrier to criminality.
Just last month, a professor in McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies whose name has not been released to the public was accused of “sexual violence” by way of stickers left in women’s restrooms on campus. The professor, who is up for tenure this semester, denies the charges, despite former students testifying to his “predatory” behavior. An open letter to Robert Wisnovsky, director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, from the World Islamic and Middle East Studies Student Association reiterated the allegations, recommending against tenure and concluding that “women are at a disadvantage within the Islamic Studies department.”
Likewise, it emerged in 2016 that two prominent professors, U.C. Berkeley’s Nezar AlSayyad and UCLA’s Gabriel Piterberg, had been sexually harassing female graduate students for years. AlSayyad, former chair of U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Piterberg, former director of UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies, exploited their positions of power to take advantage of the young women entrusted to their care. Both universities’ perceived negligence and leniency in handling the cases led to student protests and loss of faith of the system.
Another kind of relationship between student and teacher underpinned a controversy earlier this year involving Rollins College professor Areeje Zufari. Zufari, a Muslim, resigned in April following a conflict with Christian student Marshall Polston, whom she had falsely accused of stalking after he challenged her anti-Christian, Islamist assertions. After a wrongful suspension and a disciplinary hearing, Polston was reinstated, while Zufari now teaches at Valencia College. Even more sordid is Zufari’s past, including numerous ties to Islamist associations and an affair with a married man under FBI investigation for terrorist activity.