On Saturday, Brown University was the site of a horrific attack where two students were shot and killed. Five days later, there is still no suspect in custody, and despite over 800 cameras on the campus, only a few grainy videos have been released to the public as the manhunt supposedly continues.
On Tuesday, news surfaced as the pages of a student named Mustapha Kharbouch seemed to be removed from Brown University’s website. While some reports and speculations suggest he may be a suspect, other reports indicate that this data scrub is in response to Brown University’s violation of its settlement with the federal government.
In July, Brown settled with the government to avoid losing $500 million in federal funding over anti-semitism on campus and terrorist-supporting students. Brown has previously promoted Kharbouch, who is an antisemitic member of their Students for Justice in Palestine. He’s also the assistant to Professor Beshara Doumani, a professor with ties to a terrorist-linked university, a professor who’s made his way into the curriculum of one million high school students.
After going on a leave of absence from Brown in 2021, Doumani was president of Birzeit University from 2021 to 2023, a school in the West Bank where students, who were members of Hamas, were arrested for participating in terrorist plots. Their alumni also include convicted terrorists Marwan Barghouti and Kamal Nasser
During Doumani’s tenure at Birzeit:
- Hamas’ student faction, Islamic Bloc, won landslide victories.
- The student faction of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) held a march “carrying mock explosives, bombs, suicide belts, and rockets.”
- The student faction of Hamas held an event that “saluted the ‘body parts scattered’ in suicide bombings in Israeli cities.”
- In a July 2022 graduation ceremony, the school granted master’s degrees to two imprisoned terrorists.
- Several Birzeit students were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks.
In fact, Birzeit’s role in terrorism is so bad that Harvard had to cut research ties to it. But Brown? They continue to support the former President of the “Terrorist University.”
Unfortunately, what happens in Brown doesn’t stay in Brown; it has made its way to over a million students, spanning 8,000 high schools nationwide, through the Choices Program – a social studies program that, up until this year, was being used across the country. In addition to Doumani, several Brown University professors contributed to content for the Choices Program, which should be alarming to school administrators nationwide.
Brown has a long history of supporting radical extremists; it has hired the founder of the Palestinian Youth Movement, Loubna Qatami; terrorism is justified and glorified; guest speakers from Birzeit University (aka “Terrorist University) are brought in; Jewish identity is questioned and erased; professors cast doubt on even the existence of antisemitism, using it only to combat “anti-antisemitism” not actual antisemitism; and their Middle East program seems based almost entirely on postmodernism and critical theory.
The Choices Program
The Choices Program claimed to be both owned by an independent non-profit, while at the same time also affiliated with Brown University. But the reality is the program:
- was administered entirely by Brown University
- has been affiliated with various departments in Brown University
- has had numerous Brown University professors as Contributing Scholars to the program
- purchase orders were made payable to “Brown University – Choices Program.”
- one of their main Middle East contributors is none other than the founding director of Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies, Professor Beshara Doumani.
A report from ISGAP earlier this year detailed the program’s ties to Qatar (the largest foreign donor to American universities), how the Choices Program has taken a less-than-academic approach when it comes to their Middle East Studies, and the role Beshara Doumani himself has played in changing their Middle East content.
Since then, Brown announced it would stop sponsoring the program amid “financial headwinds facing the program,” and digital content would no longer be available after June. But nonetheless, a program riddled with inaccuracies, whitewashing of key information, and ties to the Qatari government was allowed to enter the classroom of a million high school students for almost two decades.
More importantly, what will school administrators choose in its place – another partnership with an “ivy league” school that has lost all credibility amidst its radical takeover? Were they aware of these academically dishonest changes in its content? How will school districts across the country ensure their social studies programs maintain the level of intellectual integrity that is required?
Choices Program’s Qatari Ties
First, the most disturbing part of the Choices Program – a social studies program used in public schools nationwide- has ties to Qatar. Qatar, an anti-Western, Islamic supremacist country – the largest financier of terrorism worldwide – is involved in shaping Middle East studies and perspectives for over a million high school students.
All this is done through Qatar Foundation International (QFI), which is based in the U.S., but is part of the Doha-based Qatar Foundation, a registered foreign agent (QF). Qatar itself has also marketed QFI, stating in writing in Q Magazine that it is part of the Qatar Foundation, and highlighting the role it plays in US education:
“Qatar Foundation International (QFI), LLC, is a US-based member of Qatar Foundation (QF). QFI operates as both a grant-making organization, and a convener of thought leadership on issues related to global and international education, open education, and education technologies as they intersect with the three core QFI programmatic areas: Arabic language and Arab culture, STE{A}M (STEM plus the Arts), and Youth Engagement.”
Although QFI is a registered American nonprofit, findings from its tax filings indicate that a substantial portion of its funding comes directly from Qatar Foundation, amounting to millions of dollars each year. In fact, in their 2011 tax filings, the only source of contributions listed was the Qatar Foundation, with a contribution of $7,232,066. Additionally, when QFI terminated its private foundation status, they transferred all of its remaining assets to the Qatar Foundation.
Brown has tried to deny connections between the Choices Program and QFI. But QFI co-sponsored a Wyoming workshop with the Choices Program in 2019, with QFI employees present at the workshop. Brown has claimed QFI’s involvement in the Choices Program was limited only to that one workshop, but during COVID, they once again partnered with QFI, when free Choices Program units on the Middle East were provided to 7th – 12th grade teachers. The program by QFI was noted, “in partnership with the Choices Program at Brown University.” The application button on the Choices Program took applicants straight to QFI’s website.
Brown Was Rewriting History in the Choices Program
Professor Beshara Doumani isn’t just another Brown University professor; he is the founding director of their Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) and was named the first endowed chair in Palestinian Studies at Brown University in 2020. Brown University has had several professors contribute to the Choices Program; Doumani started contributing to the Choices Program in 2015, and some interesting changes began to emerge in its content.
Changes in Middle East Content
In earlier content on the Middle East, the Choices Program provided equal treatment of all three religions. By the 2015 edition, the Middle East is painted as Muslim, with emphasis on Islamic civilization and achievements. It mentions Christians in relation to Muslims only, and casts Jews as outsiders. By the 2017 edition, it establishes lessons that portray Muslims as indigenous to the region. It defines Christians as Arabs, and Jews as outsiders and colonialists. Surely why let history and the Arab Conquest of the 7th century get in the way of a narrative you’re trying to promote?
In the most recent edition, 2022, the Choices Program seems to try to gloss over the Abraham Accords. A million students and teachers nationwide had a lesson on the Middle East that would not call the Abraham Accords by its name, didn’t classify them as bilateral treaties, and ignored the shift in Middle East diplomacy happening as a result. It presented the Middle East as nothing more than focused entirely on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while ignoring the positive impacts the Accords will have on the region as a whole. As pointed out in the report,
“The Choices Program quite simply dismisses the Accords on the basis that they yielded nothing for Palestinians in the short term”
Even Campus Watch, part of Middle East Forum, has noted the program’s disturbing content, particularly on terrorist groups. Terrorist groups are not designated as such in the program. Designated terrorist organizations are referred to as “resistance groups,” and terrorist attacks are described as “armed struggle against Israeli occupation.” Hamas is minimized, as the content suggests that it is only the United States and Israel that classify it as a terrorist organization (even though it is classified as one worldwide).
“Settler Colonialism,” “apartheid state,” “resistance,” “armed struggle”: all the buzz words of radical, terrorist-sympathizing college students has made its way into high school curriculum.
Changes to Iranian Content
The changes on the unit on Iran began happening even earlier. Up until the 2009 edition, Hamas and Hezbollah were called “labelled terrorist organizations.” By the 2009 edition, they were called “considered” terrorist organizations by the U.S.
Iranian aggression and threats also began to be erased at this time. In the 2008 edition, the Choices Program made students aware that President Ahmadinejad asserted that Israel should be “wiped off the map,” which led to increased international anxiety over Iran’s intentions. In the 2009-2012 editions, the language changed significantly, only referencing “hostile language to Israel” as the reason for increased international anxiety.
In an earlier 2009 edition of Teaching with the News, the program clearly identified Iran as a state-sponsor of terrorism, noting the possibility of passing nuclear weapons on to Hezbollah and Hamas. The new edition released later that year however, doesn’t mention Iran’s role in state-sponsored terrorism.
By the 2019 version, the whitewashing of Iran reached new levels, as the edition seemed to normalize terrorist groups and remove language that mentions Iran’s decades-long threats to Israel. Instead, Hezbollah is described as a “militant group,” not terrorist group, as classified in the U.S. Additionally, Iran’s role as a state-sponsor of terrorism is removed, simply stating (in reference to Hezbollah), “the Iranian government also provides support.”
How School Administrators Can Protect Intellectual Integrity
Amidst the COVID pandemic, schools across the country rushed to digital content; a delivery method that often leaves schools with the inability to accurately track changes in content, or have any oversight on it. The Choices Program, like other digital content providers, left administrators and educators with no clear method to review changes in content. Over the years, content was changed without notifying their customers/subscribers, resulting in a social studies program steeped in historical omissions and whitewashing of content.
The program used the name of an Ivy League school, Brown University, to claim academic legitimacy. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen across the country, Ivy League schools are no longer places of academic integrity. They have become hotbeds for faculty and students that support terrorist organizations and push radical agendas, as they forego intellectual honesty.
So how can school administrators navigate curriculum in this new landscape? The answer is simple – trust no one.
An Ivy League affiliation should be subject to rigorous scrutiny. Many of these schools are facing legal action by the federal government over the radicalization of their campus, curriculum, and threats to both Jewish and conservative students. The same Middle East Studies professors who are radicalizing college students may, in turn, be “contributing scholars” to your high school students’ social studies curriculum, making it imperative to review the list of contributors to your curriculum content.
Most importantly, any educational program that does not notify subscribers of changes to its content should be viewed as a red flag. Changes to editions are reviewed and approved by numerous individuals within a given educational program. Whether digital or print, each program has a detailed record of changes. When they fail to provide these changes to their customers, it is not because they are unable to, it is simply because they are unwilling to. Any customer agreement that does not include language specifying how and when the customer will receive notifications of content changes should be revised to include it.
